LUXEMBOURG – If there is one key takeaway from the just-concluded Munich Security Conference, it is a message of trust and confidence in Europe. The European Union is a technology, trade and industry powerhouse.
Around Europe, the signs of this strength abound: Off the northern coast of Poland, just beyond the horizon, 233 giant turbines — each almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower — are about to rise from the sea floor. With German rotors, foundations designed in Denmark and cables from Poland and Greece, they will be towering symbols of European manufacturing excellence and industrial might. As the latest additions to an already vast Baltic fleet, they are creating thousands of jobs across the supply chain; and when they are operational, they will supply an additional 5.5 million households with clean energy.
Producing energy made in Europe, by Europe, for Europe, Poland’s offshore wind farms are as important strategically as they are economically. They add to a build-out of clean power that is happening across the continent from Italy in the South to Ireland and Lithuania in the North. Cables and interconnectors — enough to wrap the Earth many times over — are being laid to link the windy northern seas with the sunlit Mediterranean coastline, creating a superhighway for the age of electrons.
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