About those energy bills, Commissioner...

Summary

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Brussels Playbook Podcast: "About those energy bills, Commissioner..."

Date: March 25, 2026
Host: Zoya Shevdolovic (Chief EU Correspondent, POLITICO)
Guest: Dan Jorgensen (EU Commissioner for Housing and Energy)
Co-host: Ian Wishart (Senior EU Politics Editor)
Duration: ~15 minutes

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into Europe’s persistent energy and cost of living crisis, touching on how geopolitical crises—most recently the Strait of Hormuz situation and its impact on energy prices—are affecting households and policymakers across the continent. Zoya interviews Commissioner Dan Jorgensen at POLITICO’s Competitive Europe Summit to discuss the EU’s evolving energy independence, decarbonisation, housing challenges, and the political fallout from Denmark’s election and the Greenland crisis. The podcast rounds out with lighter segments on the contest to host the EU’s new customs agency and, in true Playbook fashion, the "Tree of the Year."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Danish Elections and Political Fallout

• Election Results & Coalition Dynamics ([00:49]–[01:41])
  • Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrats lose a substantial vote share but remain likely to form the next government.
  • The centrist "Moderates," led by well-known EU figure Lars Løkke Rasmussen, become kingmakers.
  • “A key thing in this campaign for Frederiksen was this 5% tax on fortunes exceeding 2.3 million. A wealth tax.” — Zoya Shevdolovic [01:53]
• Campaign Issues
  • Cost of living, housing, environment, water quality.
  • The “Greenland grab” (Trump’s threat to take Greenland) possibly motivated early elections but domestic issues dominated.

2. Interview: Dan Jorgensen, EU Commissioner for Housing and Energy

a) State of the Energy Crisis ([03:08]–[05:47])

• Energy costs remain high despite four years since Russia invaded Ukraine; current spikes are exacerbated by conflict in the Middle East and security worries in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Jorgensen describes energy as the “center of many of the challenges that we face” ([03:33]).
• EU’s energy landscape is “better situated” now:
  • Russian gas dependency reduced from a majority to about 10%.
  • Near-total end to imports of Russian coal and oil.
  • Big increase in renewables (“more homegrown energy and… more cheap energy”).
  • Despite improvements, “when the world market prices go up, it doesn’t really matter so much what your sources are. If you are dependent on fossils, you will be hurt.” ([05:36])

b) Policy Tools, Geopolitics, and Russian Energy ([05:47]–[08:00])

• EU’s options are limited against global shocks like Iran’s actions.
• Flexible State Aid: Allowing targeted relief for households and businesses in need.
• Russia “Return” Debate: Discussion at the EU Council about whether to revisit sanctions on Russian oil and gas for affordability.
• “[There] is no road back to dependency of Russian energy. In my opinion, in the future, we should not again ever import as much as one molecule of Russian energy.” — Dan Jorgensen [07:43]

c) Danish and European Identity Post-Greenland Crisis ([08:00]–[10:49])

• Strong emotional response among Danes and especially Greenlanders to Trump’s threats.
• The “Greenland moment” has, according to Jorgensen, united the EU, increased Danish pro-EU sentiment, and highlighted the value of “having good friends and a very close community.”
• “There is no security without energy security.” — Dan Jorgensen [10:48]
• Speculation on whether Greenland could seek EU membership for protection, but Jorgensen expresses gratitude for EU solidarity.

3. EU’s Customs Agency Contest ([11:22]–[13:20])

• Nine cities (including Porto, Liege, Bucharest, Lille, Warsaw, Malaga, Zagreb, The Hague, Rome) vie to host the new pan-EU Customs Agency (coming in 2028).

• Importance of hosting:

  • Economic: Brings highly paid staff, local investment.
  • Political: “If you host an agency in your country, then you’ve got kind of an outsized role in shaping its policies and decisions, and that’s kind of a huge advantage.” — Zoya Shevdolovic [13:21]

• Leading contenders: Lille, Warsaw, Malaga, Zagreb, The Hague.

4. Lighter Segment: European Tree of the Year ([13:46]–[14:49])

• Lithuania’s Oak of Laukiai (approx. 400 years old) wins the title.
• Commissioner Jorgensen’s favorite tree: Birch.
• Humorous rapport: “After 25 years in politics, I get a question I have never gotten before... I’m also a Birch man.” — Dan Jorgensen [14:35]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On EU Energy Dependency:
  “No, there is no road back to dependency of Russian energy. In my opinion, in the future, we should not again ever import as much as one molecule of Russian energy.”
  — Dan Jorgensen [07:43]

• On Feeling the Energy Pinch:
  “It’s chilly because all of us are turning off our heating and not filling up our cars because we’re worried about rising energy prices.”
  — Zoya Shevdolovic [03:11]

• On Post-Greenland Crisis Unity:
  “I think probably the European Union has changed because of this. For the good, I would say, because we stand shoulder by shoulder.”
  — Dan Jorgensen [09:01]

• On Tree Preferences and Playful Banter:
  “After 25 years in politics, I get a question I have never gotten before... I’m also a Birch man.”
  — Dan Jorgensen [14:35]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Danish Elections: Fallout and Analysis: [00:49]–[02:24]
• Commissioner Jorgensen Interview (energy, Russia, cost of living): [03:08]–[10:49]
• Customs Agency Eurovision-Style Contest: [11:22]–[13:20]
• Tree of the Year / Favorite Tree Segment: [13:46]–[14:49]

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Summary & Takeaways

• The EU’s efforts to shake off Russian energy dependency are working, but international crises (like those in the Middle East) keep energy prices volatile, hurting everyone from industry to ordinary citizens.
• There is little appetite among European leaders or the Commission for a return to Russian energy, despite economic pain and political murmurs.
• Danish politics see renewed debates over wealth taxes, housing, and identity after extraordinary circumstances such as the Greenland crisis.
• The contest for EU agency headquarters illustrates both the importance of EU soft power and the tangible local benefits for member states.
• The episode closes in characteristic Playbook style: with tree puns and EU banter, a blend of serious news and magazine-style lightness.

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Transcript

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[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 25, and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast. I'm Zoya Shevdolovic and with me today is our senior EU politics editor, Ian Wishart. Hey, Ian.

[Ian Wishart]

Morning again, Zoya. How are you?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

I'm well. I've been watching the elections in Denmark. Have you been?

[Ian Wishart]

Yes, that's what we're going to start this morning on. It looks like a pretty, pretty disastrous result for the Prime Minister.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yes and no. Disastrous, but still she won. It's just she did not do very well. She's really lost a bunch of her vote share.

[Ian Wishart]

So what happens next? There's sort of coalition building now. We've got a story in Politico about the kingmaker, this man that everybody here will know, Lars Locher. Rasmussen.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah, that's right. He's the Danish foreign minister, the leader of the centrist Moderate Party and he

[Ian Wishart]

was the Prime Minister. That's why people here know him a lot in Brussels.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

That's right. All around the European Council summit table. He's well known and he is part is looking like it might really swing the balance. And so Mette Friedrichsen, she's going to be trying to retain her prime ministership and stick around for a third term. But a lot of it is going to be up to old Lars Locke Erasmussen, who likes to use soap to brush his teeth, apparently.

[Ian Wishart]

Yeah, we did. We wrote that story on Politico. So bottom line anyway, Friedrichsen is terrible result for her, but it looks like she's the most likely person to be prime minister again.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah, it does. And I think a key thing in this campaign for Friedrichsen was this 5% tax on fortunes exceeding 2.3 million. A wealth tax.

[Ian Wishart]

Yeah, I mean, we mentioned yesterday that a lot of this, a lot of the foreign media were talking about how this was an election that came after the big Greenland grab. It's quite likely that she called the election early because of that, that surge in her popularity. But actually the campaign itself was dominated by, as you say, things like the wealth tax, cost of living, housing, environment and quality of water supply a lot which I found Quite interesting.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Well, I do love some water. All right, listen. I do. I'm a thirsty girl. Ian, we're going to do things a bit differently today. Yesterday, I sat down with the EU's Housing and Energy Commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, at Politico's Competitive Europe Summit.

[Ian Wishart]

How did that go?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

It was super interesting. We had a chat about the crisis that's being caused by the Strait of Hormuz, the fact that energy prices for Europe are up and, yeah, it was a super interesting discussion about what his portfolio is really all about. We've got plenty more with me and Ian after, including a return to Treegate.

[Ian Wishart]

Oh, really?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Don't act so stumped.

[Ian Wishart]

I may. Let's have a quick listen.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Let's do it. G'. Day. G'. Day. The vibe in Brussels today, well, it's. It's chilly because all of us are turning off our heating and not filling up our cars because we're worried about rising energy prices. Commissioner Jorgensen, you are the Commissioner, Energy and Housing. I don't think there is a more key portfolio at the moment. How are you doing?

[Dan Jorgensen]

Well, when you put it like that. No, seriously. Obviously, we live in turbulent times. Energy is at the center of many of the challenges that we face. We are in a process of getting rid of our dependency, of rushing gas. So there's the security dimension, there's the price dimension, because prices are high. They were even before the present crisis in the Middle East. This hurts our competitiveness, it hurts our citizens because of high costs of living. There's decarbonization still, of course, as a main focus point in our. In our energy system, because we need to fight climate change. At the same time, housing is considered one of the biggest challenges in many, many member states because it's simply too expensive.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah, I just undertook a bit of a search in Brussels and a challenge, and I think I'm luckier than most. So what can be done? I mean, people around the block are feeling this cost of living crisis and we've got perma crises now. It feels a bit like 2022 when the war first broke out in Ukraine. We were all kind of suddenly struck with this energy emergency. But it's years down the track, four years down the track, and we're feeling the same sorts of pressures. What can the Commission do?

[Dan Jorgensen]

Well, in a way, it's similar. It's similar because people are struggling to pay their bills. But if we dive into an analysis of what is actually happening, it's quite different. One of the reasons it's different is that we are better situated now to dealing with the crisis. In 22, we were heavily dependent on gas from Russia. Today that dependency is of course, of a different nature. We get zero coal, we get almost no oil, and we get around 10% of our gas from Russia, and we're getting out of that dependency. Also. We have also deployed much more renewables. This means that we have more homegrown energy and we have more cheap energy. So in many ways we've moved forward. Now, the reason why this hurts us so hard as it does the present situation is that when the world market prices goes up, it doesn't really matter so much what your sources are. If you are dependent on fossils, you will be hurt.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

That kind of brings into the room the elephant in the room, which is this Iran and of course the EU is not really doing much and can't do all that much to stop that. What can Europe do when you've got such vast geopolitical problems that are really hoiking the rug out from under Europe's feet when we're trying to bring prices down?

[Dan Jorgensen]

It is true that there's no one simple answer, there's no silver bullet. But there's a range of different things that you can do that will help member states and will help citizens and companies. We do have quite flexible state aid rules that makes it possible for member states to say, okay, this group of vulnerable citizens, we will help them economically to face this crisis or these types of industry, we will help them lower their energy bills.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

The other element here, though, is that there is a taboo topic that seems to be potentially coming back onto the stage. So we saw at that European Council summit, per my reporting, that there was one leader, Bart Di Weva, who asked within that European Council summit whether it was time to start discussing imports and getting rid of that Russian oil, phase out and come back to that Russian oil. Is it time to start that discussion now? He didn't say necessarily that he wanted to do that, but he asked the group, is it time to have that discussion? We also know that there is this dispute over the Druzhba pipeline, which is that pipeline that carries Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia. And Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, has made hay out of that pipeline. It seems to me like this crisis has really helped one man and one man only. And that man is Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Is there now this pragmatic kind of tide turning back towards dependency on Russian gas, or at least being open to Russian gas and oil and so forth.

[Dan Jorgensen]

So now I'm going to do something that I, as a former podcast host myself, know that you will like. I will be very direct and maybe not so diplomatic. No, there is no road back to dependency of Russian energy. In my opinion, in the future, we should not again ever import as much as one molecule of Russian energy.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

I want to ask you about your home country, the country you know best, your country, fellow countrymen, countrywomen, are going to the polls today. Yes, it is a snap election that was called in response to or after, perhaps not necessarily directly in response to, but but after this Greenland crisis, after Donald Trump started saying that he was going to take Greenland by force. How has the impact of those threats affected Daines?

[Dan Jorgensen]

I don't think I've met a single Dane that hasn't been truly shocked. A lot of sadness, to be honest. Probably also a lot of anger. I know also a lot of people that were afraid, especially I know a lot of people in Greenland that were terrified. So, yes, it's clear it affects everybody. But I will also say it hasn't only affected us in Denmark, it's affected all of Europe. And I've been touched and so proud to be a part of a union that has stood up for Denmark, for Greenland, for our community. So the support we've been getting from Europe, some people talk about the Greenland moment. I think that might be right because I think probably the European Union has changed because of this. For the good, I would say because we stand shoulder by shoulder.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Might Greenland have changed? Could this be the trigger for it to come and join the European Union, where at least it has some degree of security and safety in numbers?

[Dan Jorgensen]

That's not up to me to say. But I don't think I will offend anybody by also extending to maybe even some of the listeners to this podcast some gratitude. I can definitely do it on my own behalf and on government of Denmark. I know them well enough that I can do that. But I think also this would be true for most grandem people, that they would also agree that we really thank our partners and friends in the European Union for the support we've got. We have traditionally Denmark been a country where there's been a lot of skepticism towards the eu and we've had referendums and some of them, the more pro European side have lost. Now this has fundamentally changed. We've never had such a broad support for the European Union as we have now. But you know, maybe it's not that strange that you could wish that it didn't have to come to this, of course, but when you're really under pressure. When you're really threatened, then you. You really see the value of having good friends and having a very close community and we need to make our union stronger. Military. But also on the portfolio that I'm responsible for, which is energy, because there is no security without energy security.

[Ian Wishart]

That was really interesting, Zoya. And it was nice to hear a commissioner be humorous and be fun and be charismatic on stage and on a recording.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

It's all to be expected from a former podcaster. So.

[Ian Wishart]

And I think the thing that struck me was when he said that Europe was phasing out Russian gas and oil and there wouldn't be any left to use.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah, he was pretty unequivocal there. Foreign. Yes. Yesterday we spoke about a Eurovision style competition for trees, which I know you loved.

[Ian Wishart]

I did love, yeah. Is there another one today?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yep. Eurovision style competition for who's going to get to host the new EU wide customs agency that's taking place today.

[Ian Wishart]

Wow. And who's going to win?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

I don't know. There's nine cities vying for it. It's. It's actually quite an important agency, to be fair. Basically, there are 27 different Customs agency, one for each country.

[Ian Wishart]

They're policing things like these dodgy packages that come and go across borders.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah. Dodgy toys, cosmetics that don't comply with EU rules, obviously illegal drugs. And the plan is to overhaul EU customs law by creating just one agency, which is meant to come about in 2028.

[Ian Wishart]

So where is it going to be? Can we reveal that now?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

I wish, Ian. I don't have those kinds of sources. Well, mainly because they haven't done the voting yet. So the three EU institutions are going to be voting today. There's nine cities in the running. Porto, Liege, Bucharest, Lille, Warsaw, Malaga, Zagreb, the Haguen, Rome.

[Ian Wishart]

Who do you want to win?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Ooh, maybe Liege. Hometown favourite. What about you?

[Ian Wishart]

Lille, I think. Though that's not too far away either.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Oh, I get it.

[Ian Wishart]

This is really intricate way of voting which people can read about on the Pettico website today and also see some beautiful illustrations from our illustrator, Natalia Delgado.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah, it's really stunning and really stylish. Simplifies matters. But the favorites. There are a few favorites. It's Leel, Warsaw, Malaga, Zagreb and the Hague. And it's super attractive to get one of these EU agencies in your town.

[Ian Wishart]

I'm really interested, actually, into the effort that goes into the charm offensive when, you know, all these delegations go round to these individual cities when the contests take place, they talk about, you Know, you can come here and come to our great schools, we've got a great health system and things like that. It's not just simply about choosing a city for a organization.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah. And the reason that these cities want to host these agencies, it's. I mean, there are a few things. One is you get, you know, hundreds of well paid EU employees coming in, boosting your local economy, going to your local private schools, shopping in your shops. So that's a boon. But then there's also the soft power element.

[Ian Wishart]

Yeah, what's that?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Well, it's. If you host an agency in your country, then you've got kind of an outsized role in shaping its policies and decisions, and that's kind of a huge advantage. So that's this customs agency. It's a big deal. So that's why a lot of cities want it. Ian, for our last story. Your dream is about to come true. Please contain yourself. We're going back to the trees, okay?

[Ian Wishart]

Do we have to?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Why do you hate trees?

[Ian Wishart]

I just don't want to talk about trees for 15 minutes every morning.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Well, it's going to be for two minutes. Look, we've got a winner for the Tree of the year. I'll have you know it was Lithuania's oak of Lao kiai. That's meant to be around 400 years old. It's huge. It's noble, it's beautiful.

[Ian Wishart]

Actually, I would think nothing less of the winner of the European Tree of the Year.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Yeah, that's right. Well, Poland loses again. Sorry, Poland. Sorry, Dionis. I also asked Commissioner Jorgensen what his favorite tree was, I'll have you know.

[Ian Wishart]

Are we going to hear that?

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

We bloody well are. I have one extremely important question for you. On the podcast yesterday, we were talking about the Eurovision of trees. Tree of the Year is getting crowned today. I'm partial to a birch. What's your favorite tree?

[Dan Jorgensen]

So, after 25 years in politics, I get a question I have never gotten before. This is not very imaginator. But now you say birch. I can feel it in my stomach and my heart that I'm also a Birch man.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Well, we're gonna end it at that. He's a fellow Birchman, not a Birchman. He's another Birchman. You're the odd one out with your weeping voice.

[Ian Wishart]

I think it's a conflict of partiality, the fact that journalist and interviewee are both choosing the same tree. There, Zoya.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Maybe it's time for him to branch out. Well, that's about it from us today, folks. I swear I'M not talking about trees again this week. Probably next week, though. Like, subscribe. Please rate us. Don't judge us on the video.

[Ian Wishart]

Probably. Yeah. Not on today's episode, no.

[Zoya Shevdolovic]

Folks, thanks for joining us. We've loved having you.

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