Even if the outcome by the year 2012 remains ambivalent, the EU's integrated energy and climate policy as well as its quantitative targets for 2020 proved the Union's ability to act. A serious discussion of the energy and climate strategy for the post-2020 period will begin in 2014 at the latest. Conflicts between the Member States about direction and speed of an almost complete decarbonisation of the European economies are most likely to appear. The German energy policy - currently fully engaged with the domestic energy transition - should therefore pay attention to the European perspective better sooner than later.