The European Union needs a unified energy policy to replace member states’ individual energy strategies, in order to combat climate change and to improve the security of supply, says the head of the EU’s Environment Agency.

Jacqueline McGlade, executive director of the EEA, told the Financial Times that modernising energy infrastructure required such huge investment that without a Europe-wide agreement on the future of energy, countries and companies were unlikely to be able to embark on such a process.