London, 16 February 2010

The EU will meet its 2020 20% renewable energy target - slightly exceeding it - according to an analysis by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) of all 27 Member States' national forecast documents. The EWEA analysis shows that EU member states are on course to achieve over 20% renewable energy by 2020, with 21 Member States meeting or exceeding their national targets. 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 forecast 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.

Top achievers are Spain, which believes it will reach 22.7% renewables by 2020 - almost 3%-points above its 20% target. Next comes Germany which 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 - the two countries which state that with fresh national initiatives they could meet or exceed their targets. 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).

"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” said Justin Wilkes, Policy Director of EWEA. "The forecast documents give a clear signal to the European Commission of where they could facilitate implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive” said Wilkes.

Christine Lins, Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council stated, “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”.

For further details see EWEA’s table by clicking here. It shows which countries are forecasting meeting, exceeding or using flexibility mechanisms to reach their targets.

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