Since February 2022, geopolitical events have made clear Europe's need to diversify its energy sources and avoid excessive dependence on fossil fuel imports. The drop in Russian natural gas flows to Europe in 2022 marked the single largest supply shock in the history of global gas markets. It...

This companion piece to the Fall 2022 ECA Economic Update provides an overview of the policy options available to countries to respond to the energy price shock and examines how this crisis could harness the clean energy transition to enhance collective energy security. The options to support...

The European Union (EU) Regular Economic Report (RER), is an annual publication of the World Bank Group and covers economic developments, prospects, and economic policies in the European Union. The report finds that while growth is back on track, the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution...

In the context of Romania's push toward sustainable and inclusive development, the government has asked the World Bank to support the harmonization of public investments financed by the European Union and the state budget. The current report describes the national program for local development...

This report explores options to scale up and accelerate the energy transition to cleaner electricity and district heating generation mixes and reconcile the government's concerns over the serious local air pollution and commitments to combat climate change. The report draws three main...

Vietnam has successfully developed the electricity and gas sectors that have contributed substantially to the economic development of Vietnam. To date, near universal electrification has been achieved, and the industrial, commercial, and residential sectors benefit from increasingly reliable...

Croatia joined the European Union (EU) in 2013, and the energy sector has been undergoing liberalization, deregulation, and unbundling of state-owned energy utilities. Croatia haswelcomed a number of new public and private energy companies. The Croatian power exchange was established in 2014 and...

The purpose of this report is to identify how to maximize finance available to Nepal in the electricity sector. This report identifies financing needs and constraints for the energy sector in the short to medium term and outlines a road map for overcoming these constraints and seizing...

The Palestinian Territories face significant energy security challenges, already severe in Gaza, but also emerging in the West Bank. In Gaza, the available power supply only meets half the demand leading to rolling blackouts, alternating between 8 hours on and 8 hours off. Although the West Bank...