2025 was a decisive yr within the evolution of the transatlantic vitality relationship. What started as an emergency response to Europe’s sudden publicity to extreme vitality disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 matured right into a long-term strategic realignment. The Sixth Partnership for Transatlantic Vitality Cooperation, which passed off in Athens in November, underscored this shift, bringing collectively vitality ministers, senior U.S. officers, and private-sector leaders to deal with diversifying Europe’s vitality provide.
Now, the problem earlier than Europe and the US is to maneuver past conceptual alignment and make sure the sensible supply of infrastructure, markets, and funding that may maintain Europe’s vitality safety for many years to come back.
Europe’s choice to unwind its dependence on Russian fuel, which started in 2022, was each strategic and ethical. For years, the continent’s vitality mannequin rested on an assumption that proved fragile: Cheap Russian provides have been handled as a given. The total penalties of that dependence turned plain when Russia turned vitality into an instrument of political strain by curbing pipeline flows, manipulating contract phrases, and weaponizing provide disruptions to extract concessions from European states.
Europe selected a special path, acknowledging that financial comfort may not override strategic vulnerability. In 2021, Russia provided round 40 p.c of the European Union’s fuel imports; by 2024, that quantity had fallen to round 11 p.c. Final week, the EU formally adopted binding guidelines to section out Russian fuel imports fully—with liquefied pure fuel (LNG) imports banned from early 2027 and pipeline fuel imports prohibited later that yr.
Amid this transition, the US stepped up decisively. The surge of U.S. LNG that reached Europe in 2022 and 2023 helped stabilize markets at a second of acute stress, however the significance of the U.S. position has grown effectively past emergency aid. U.S. vitality has turn into a structural pillar of Europe’s safety structure. In 2024, the US was the EU’s largest provider of LNG, accounting for practically 45 p.c of the bloc’s complete LNG imports. In 2025, the U.S. share of the EU’s LNG imports approached practically 60 p.c, underscoring the deepening transatlantic vitality integration.
This progress has required sustained management on each side of the Atlantic. The US acknowledged that supporting Europe’s vitality transition would strengthen each Europe’s resilience and the cohesion of the transatlantic alliance.
The joint assertion that U.S. Vitality Secretary Chris Wright and I issued on the summit in November displays this shift. We emphasised long-term alignment on vitality safety, cooperation on infrastructure and know-how, and a shared view of vitality as a pillar of strategic safety relatively than a transactional commodity. Throughout my go to to Washington in December, this shift was as soon as once more reaffirmed in each assembly I had with White Home officers and members of Congress.
Greece’s rise inside this new panorama is among the most consequential and least anticipated developments of the previous a number of years. A rustic as soon as seen as peripheral to Europe’s vitality system has moved to its heart. Greece is now a vital entry level for U.S. LNG into Europe. In 2025, greater than 80 p.c of Greece’s LNG imports got here from the US, practically double the extent from the earlier yr. In the meantime, the Revythousa LNG terminal exterior Athens and the brand new floating regasification unit in Alexandroupoli have turn into main stabilizing property for Europe’s central and southeastern states.
This transformation isn’t a matter of geography; it’s the results of Greece’s deliberate coverage decisions, regulatory reform, and well timed execution. In 2020, Greece imported roughly 6 billion cubic meters of fuel and exported virtually none. By 2024, it turned a web vitality exporter for the primary time in its fashionable historical past: That yr, inflows exceeded 17 billion cubic meters, 11 billion of which have been reexported to neighboring international locations. Greece is not a shopper on the fringe of the system. It’s a co-architect of Europe’s new vitality map, a nation more and more relied upon by its neighbors for stability, entry, and connectivity.
This coverage shift pushed by Greece’s authorities and our companions throughout the area has already had tangible impacts for European shoppers. Market volatility has eased as diversified provide reduces vulnerability to exterior manipulation. Predictions that severing dependence on Russian fuel would hurt European competitiveness haven’t materialized.
Nonetheless, affordability stays a problem. At the same time as wholesale fuel costs have fallen from the peaks seen in 2022, they continue to be effectively above pre-crisis ranges, reinforcing the necessity for adequate provide, aggressive LNG markets, and cross-border connections that enable vitality to circulate the place it’s most wanted.
That’s the reason Europe is prioritizing the development of the Vertical Hall, a pipeline community linking Greece to Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, and Ukraine. When totally operational, it would enable non-Russian fuel to succeed in as much as 100 million Europeans. For Ukraine, the hall isn’t merely an vitality undertaking however a strategic lifeline, anchoring its future inside a safe European system. The following steps are to broaden industrial memorandums of understanding, harmonize regulation, and speed up technical upgrades in order that the hall capabilities as a real spine of Europe’s diversified provide.
On Greece’s half, we’ve got a market setting that’s encouraging long-term funding. The federal government and personal sector’s partnerships with firms comparable to ExxonMobil, Helleniq Vitality, and Energean are advancing offshore exploration, with a view to starting drilling in 18 months within the northwest Ionian Sea. Likewise, the Chevron-Helleniq Vitality three way partnership goals to speed up seismic surveys in 2026 south of Crete and the Peloponnese.
For Greece, this isn’t a rejection of the transition to renewable vitality however an effort to handle it responsibly. A dependable provide of vitality stays important throughout the transition interval, particularly as Europe grapples with the three-pillared problem of decarbonization, affordability, and safety.
And Greece’s renewable vitality transition is already effectively underway: In 2024, renewables provided greater than half of the nation’s electrical energy technology, pushed by report additions of wind, photo voltaic, and hydro capability. Underneath the revised nationwide vitality and local weather plan, Greece is aiming for 82 p.c of its electrical energy technology to come back from renewable sources by 2030.
Greece’s home technique displays a broader philosophy that’s more and more related throughout Europe. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has averted framing vitality coverage as a alternative between ideological purity and sensible necessity. As an alternative, he has pursued a balanced path of increasing renewable vitality, modernizing the grid, and investing in regional interconnections, all whereas making certain that pure fuel stays obtainable and inexpensive because the continent strikes towards its local weather targets.
There’s additionally a extra profound shift underneath approach. Vitality is changing into the hidden basis of technological energy. Synthetic intelligence, superior computing, and cloud infrastructure all require huge quantities of dependable, low-cost vitality. Entry to such vitality will assist decide which areas lead in innovation and which fall behind. Europe’s potential to compete within the AI-driven world economic system is dependent upon securing ample and steady energy. On this respect, Greece’s emergence as a regional vitality hub intersects immediately with Europe’s technological future. The infrastructure and human-capital expertise now being constructed usually are not solely an engine of safety however a platform for long-term competitiveness.
Taken collectively, these developments underscore the necessity to shortly translate transatlantic vitality cooperation from shared intent into tangible outcomes. First, European governments and EU establishments should make investments decisively in LNG infrastructure, together with further regasification capability and storage. These investments are wanted and wanted at tempo.
Second, EU member states and regional companions ought to deepen participation in regional corridors, together with expanded memorandums of understanding for the Vertical Hall and accelerated allowing for interconnections, which entails streamlining environmental and regulatory approvals, shortening timelines for cross-border infrastructure, and harmonizing technical requirements to permit initiatives to maneuver from planning to development directly.
Third, policymakers on each side of the Atlantic have to help stronger U.S.-European financial integration by institutionalizing cooperation on LNG commerce, hydrogen worth chains, grid resilience, and regulatory alignment. These steps will present markets with the long-term indicators wanted to mobilize non-public capital.
Greece intends to stay a number one contributor to this effort. Our distinctive geographic place on the intersection of Europe, the Jap Mediterranean, and the Center East—in addition to our world management in transport capability—brings with it each substantial alternatives and essential obligations. We’re dedicated to persevering with to behave as a bridge between areas, a dependable associate for allies, and a constructive voice in shaping Europe’s collective vitality future.
The deeper lesson of the present second is obvious. When nations align their priorities, spend money on shared infrastructure, and place belief on the heart of their cooperation, they’ll construct resilience even in occasions of profound world instability.
2025 could finally be seen not solely because the yr when Europe accelerated its separation from Russian fuel, but in addition because the second when the transatlantic partnership entered a brand new section, outlined by long-term strategic imaginative and prescient. The duty for 2026 is to show alignment into sturdy progress. Greece, the US, and our European companions should work collectively, undertaking by undertaking, hall by hall—in order that the vitality connecting our nations secures prosperity and stability for generations to come back.
