| Finally, the first 10 National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) were submitted.
Yesterday Austria submitted its plan, albeit late, surprising observers who expected the fractious outgoing Vienna government to be unable to find a consensus. This puts the number of submitted long-term climate plans at 10 out of 27 member states. Big hitters like Germany, Spain, and Poland are still missing.
While flouting legal deadlines is bad - all 27 plans were due on 30 June - the delays also mean that the transport sector climate shortcomings may continue to fly under the radar, seriously undermining overall climate ambitions.
Lobby group Transport & Environment warns of a potential 5.5% shortfall on the 2030 EU target to cut overall emissions from road transport, agriculture, small industry, and buildings by 40%. But nobody will know for sure until the missing NECPs, can be comprehensively studied by Brussels.
[Nikolaus J. Kurmayer]
EU imports €250 million of Russian fossil fuels. The first week of August saw the bloc continue to import crude oil via pipeline and LNG worth about €80 million each, in the period between 5 to 11 August, supplemented by imports of refined oil and pipeline gas. LNG significantly outstripped land-bound gas imports, according to research by the think-tank CREA.
[Nikolaus J. Kurmayer] | 
