The top 21 are made up of 13 member states who predict they will meet their target and eight who forecast they will exceed their target. Only six states forecast that they will not manage to reach their target through domestic action alone, although two of these say that with fresh national initiatives they can meet or exceed their targets. None of the six expect to be more than 1%-point below their target.
Spain believes it will reach 22.7% renewables by 2020 – almost 3%-points above its 20% target. Germany expects to be 0.7%-points above its 18% target. In addition, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden will exceed their targets.
The six who do not expect to meet their target are Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and Malta, together with Bulgaria and Denmark. Bottom of the league is Italy which, in order to meet its target, foresees importing renewable energy from neighbouring non-EU countries (Albania, Croatia, Serbia and Tunisia).
Justin Wilkes, policy director of EWEA, said: “Europe has witnessed a sea-change since the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive was agreed as in 2008 many countries were stating that their target would be difficult to meet – now the majority are forecasting that they will meet or exceed their national target. The forecast documents give a clear signal to the European Commission of where they could facilitate implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive”.
Christine Lins, secretary general of the European Renewable Energy Council, said: “The clear majority of European member states recognise the economic, environmental and social benefits of promoting a broad range of renewable energy technologies nationally, as reflected in their forecast documents.”
