TAKING BACK POWER

Kadri Simson, the EU Commissioner for Energy, has seen her portfolio morph into a hot-button issue as gas and electric bills soared for the bloc’s citizens and Russia launched its war of aggression in Ukraine. Gabriele Rosana speaks to Simson about forging a new energy path

Kadri Simson, the EU Commissioner for Energy, says she had to fight back tears at the end of the emotional address delivered by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the plenary of the European Parliament. The Ukrainian leader was in Brussels on 9 February for the last leg of a trip which began in London and Paris and then continued to Warsaw, almost a full year into Russia’s war on his country. Standing at the podium before the EU’s lawmakers, Zelenskyy greeted the room with the now-familiar “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine!), to which the audience responded with the customary answer, “Heroyam Slava!” (Glory to the heroes!).

Simson was seated on the right side of the hemicycle, together with her colleagues from the College of Commissioners. “We have been part of a historic moment – it was impressive,” she tells The Parliament just a few hours later, speaking at her office on the eighth floor of the Berlaymont.

With Zelenskyy still answering questions from the Brussels press corps across the street and helicopters circling over Schuman roundabout amidst the ongoing extraordinary European Council, the summit of the EU’s heads of state and governments, it was a potent moment to sit down for an interview with the bloc’s chief energy officer.

An Estonian national, the 46-year-old Kadri Simson holds a degree in history from the University of Tartu, the oldest and largest higher education institution in the country, and a master’s degree in political science from University College London. Like many others in the Brussels EU quarter, she’s donned a blue and yellow ribbon on her jacket since the start of the Russian offensive against Ukraine.

The Baltic countries have long warned about the risk of military escalation by Moscow, a concern often brushed off by their peers in the EU. “We knew that this could have happened,” Simson admits.

“I guess we were not vocal enough back then,” she adds. “In a way, due to our history, a few leaders [outside the Baltics] may have thought that for us this was about some sort of national trauma, and that never, ever could a 20th-century type of war return to European soil, with foreign troops targeting innocent civilians.”

“We do understand what it means for a nation to fight for its independence. This was our past, and today it is the terrible present of Ukraine.”

Estonia has largely managed to bury the last remnants of its Soviet past while turning itself into a digital haven and an incubator of start-up success stories (“I was definitely ready when we turned to fully remote work!” Simson says with a smile).

She recalls her adolescence before the small country gained independence from the Soviet Union: “Before that, in the 80s, almost every family had relatives who had been

“For sure, we cannot afford anything that will bring us to a situation where we start consuming more gas”