Dan Jorgensen

Dan Jorgensen, the Danish politician who became EU Energy Commissioner in December 2024 as part of Ursula von der Leyen's second Commission, holds the climate, net-zero and clean growth portfolio. On 9 April 2026 he chaired the Gas Coordination Group meeting at which the Commission formally lowered the mandatory gas storage filling target from 90% to 80% by 1 November 2026, with flexibility down to 70% in exceptional circumstances, a direct response to depleted storage across member states following the Iran-linked supply crisis.

Jorgensen entered EU politics from a long career in the Danish Social Democrats, serving as Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities in Denmark before his Brussels appointment. His brief in the Commission covers the Energy Union, REPowerEU implementation, decarbonisation of heating and industry, and the governance of gas and electricity markets under the reformed Energy Market Design regulation adopted in 2024. The storage target reduction is the first major relaxation of the emergency supply-security rules introduced after Russia cut pipeline flows in 2022.

The decision puts Jorgensen at the centre of a tension that will define European energy policy through 2026 and 2027: the need to reduce energy costs for industry and households against the imperative to maintain adequate buffer stocks ahead of winter. Member states with large deficits, notably Germany, pressed hardest for relief, while others with fuller storage warned against normalising lower targets. His response will shape whether the Commission's revised framework is seen as pragmatic crisis management or a risky loosening of hard-won security margins.

Jørgensen also holds the Housing Commissioner brief, and on 16 December 2025 he presented the European Affordable Housing Plan, which commits the Commission to a second STR legislative initiative. The plan text names "annual night caps" and "seasonal rules" as candidate tools, with Barcelona and Paris cited as model cities. The legislative proposal is provisionally scheduled for Q4 2026. As of today — EU Regulation 2024/1028's application date — two STR instruments now sit on the Commission's runway simultaneously: the data-transparency regulation now live, and Jørgensen's forthcoming Affordable Housing Act provisions that would ADD substantive housing-stress powers including caps on commercial conversion and seasonal rules pushing properties toward long-term lets. Cities running their own night-cap politics, including Barcelona and Lisbon, will spend the second half of 2026 watching whether Jørgensen's draft hands them statutory cover or imports an industry framing that prefers "areas under housing stress" to bloc-wide caps.