Energy import dependency of Member States
- Eurostat dataset
- nrg_ind_id
- Reference period
- 2024
- Unit of measure
- % of gross available energy
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2024): 57.3 % of gross available energy.
- Highest value: Malta at 98.4 % of gross available energy; lowest: Norway at -677.2 % of gross available energy.
- Cross-country mean 34.4 % of gross available energy, standard deviation 120.7, coefficient of variation 351.0% across 37 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2013→2024: -7.3% on a constant panel of 36 countries.
How exposed is Europe to imported energy? Eurostat dataset nrg_ind_id reports energy import dependency of Member States for 37 reporting countries, with 2024 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 57.3 % of gross available energy. Import dependency links climate policy to security policy through a single measurable ratio.
The five highest values in 2024 are recorded by Malta (98.4), Luxembourg (91.0), Cyprus (87.7), Ireland (79.5), Moldova (79.3), all expressed in % of gross available energy. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Norway (-677.2), Estonia (4.62), Iceland (16.8), Sweden (26.5), Albania (27.1). while the median country reports 53.3 % of gross available energy against a mean of 34.4 % of gross available energy.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 120.7 % of gross available energy, giving a coefficient of variation of 351.0%. The mean sits below the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the lower tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2013 and 2024 the summed value across the 36 countries reporting in both periods moved by -7.3%. The largest relative increases are observed in Denmark (+210.5%), Netherlands (+197.3%), Poland (+74.1%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Estonia (-68.2%), Latvia (-47.6%), Finland (-33.6%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Lower values are the policy-preferred direction, so the top of the distribution identifies where the burden concentrates: bringing the highest observation down to the median would remove 45.1 % of gross available energy from the European total for that country alone. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset nrg_ind_id ('Energy imports dependency'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-07-16. Filter dimensions: siec=TOTAL; unit=PC. Unit of measure: % of gross available energy. Reference period: 2024. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (37 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.