How the Iran War Is Changing Europe’s Energy Transition

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The war in Iran will force Europe to pursue a more resilient, flexible, and protected energy system.

The war in Iran is not just another energy shock. It is arriving at a moment when Europe is already under cumulative strain: a war on its eastern border, the lingering aftershocks of the 2022 energy crisis, industrial decline, political fragmentation, fiscal limits, and a widening debate over how much of its own security it must now provide. This is why the shock matters. It tests not only Europe’s energy system, but the broader strategic model on which Europe has relied for decades.

Europe’s decline has been predicted many times before, and often too early. The continent has repeatedly found the institutional capacity to recover from deep crises. But reinvention now will be harder, and call for more strategy and less naivety. Europe no longer has the luxury of treating climate policy, energy security, industrial competitiveness, and geopolitical power as separate domains. They are becoming one problem: preserving European agency in a more fragmented world where external shocks travel fast, and the margin for policy error is small.

That is the real significance of the Iran War. It is not simply a question of whether oil prices spike, LNG cargoes are redirected, or inflation rises again; it is a question of whether Europe can still act in its interests rather than merely react to events. Within this question lies another: whether Europe can build an energy system that supports strategic autonomy rather than one that leaves it dependent and vulnerable.

Why Europe Cannot Stop Its Energy Transition

A continent still heavily dependent on imported hydrocarbons (88 percent of gas and 93 percent of oil are imported) will remain strategically exposed. That was the core lesson of 2022, and it has not changed. If Europe were to slow-walk the transition now, it would remain reliant on imported molecules, external price shocks, geopolitical coercion, and the slow erosion of industrial competitiveness.

But Europe cannot afford a dream version of decarbonization either—a dream that cuts emissions while hollowing out industrial capacity, weakening innovation, and deepening dependence on outside suppliers. That is the central tension. The choice is not between climate ambition and realism. The choice is between a transition that strengthens Europe and a transition that leaves it greener but weaker.

There is real progress to build on. Europe has decarbonized its electric grid at a heady pace. In 2024, renewables accounted for 47.5 percent of the EU’s gross electricity consumption. But that success can also mislead. Across the European Union’s energy system, renewables accounted for only a quarter of energy consumed in 2024. Renewables provided approximately the same share of the energy for the continent’s heating and cooling, and just 11 percent of its transport. Europe has advanced significantly in power generation; it has moved much less in the sectors that still anchor its fossil dependence.

That distinction matters. The easiest part of the transition is no longer the real bottleneck. Europe has made real progress where electrons already dominate. The harder task now lies in those parts of the economy still anchored to imported hydrocarbons.

From Russian Oil Pipelines to LNG and Clean-Tech Imports

Since 2022, Europe has reduced one vulnerability, but not its energy vulnerability as such. It has cut back dependence on Russian pipeline gas, diversified supplies, and expanded LNG infrastructure. That is a real achievement. But in doing so, it has become more exposed to global LNG markets and seaborne trade. LNG’s share of total EU gas imports rose from 20 percent in 2021 to 45 percent in 2025. But it has not produced sovereignty. It has produced a new configuration of dependence: less pipeline exposure to Russia, more seaborne exposure to global LNG, shipping risk, insurance costs, and Asian competition for cargoes. Europe did not escape dependence. It reconfigured it.

That reconfiguration sits inside a larger shift in global power. Europe increasingly finds itself squeezed between two systems: the world of “petrostates” and the world of “electrostates.” In the first, leverage comes from hydrocarbons, export routes, and physical supply. In the second, it comes from clean technologies, manufacturing ecosystems, critical minerals, and control over electrified value chains. Europe remains exposed to both. 

It still depends on imported oil and gas, but it also imports far more green-energy products than it exports overall. In 2024, the EU imported €11.1 billion ($12.7 billion) worth of solar panels; China alone accounted for 98 percent of extra-EU solar-panel imports. By contrast, Europe still retains real strength in wind: it exported €2.8 billion ($3.2 billion) worth of wind turbines in 2024, far more than it imported. That is the point. Europe is not simply weak, but it is uneven—and strategic dependence can emerge in very different ways across the clean-energy........

© The National Interest