In 2025, 99% of Sweden’s electricity came from low-carbon sources — the highest share in the EU. Its power system is built on a model Europe should have copied decades ago: → Hydro: ~40% of electricity → Nuclear: ~27% → Wind: ~23% → Fossil fuels: only ~1.2% Sweden combined domestic hydro, nuclear baseload, rapid wind expansion, bioenergy, district heating and electrification. In 2024, Sweden already had the highest renewable energy share in the EU: 62.8% of gross final energy consumption, compared with only 25.2% for the EU average. And in 2025, Sweden doubled down: parliament passed legislation to finance a new generation of nuclear reactors, targeting around 5,000 MW of new capacity, with roughly half expected online by 2035. This is what Europe should have done over the last two decades. (Sweden had a structural advantage: abundant rivers, large hydro resources, low population density and decades of investment in domestic clean power). But the lesson is not only geography. With common debt, larger national investment and coordinated European energy projects, Europe could have moved much closer to real energy sovereignty through renewables, hydro, nuclear, grids, storage and electrification. Instead, much of Europe remained too dependent on external fossil fuels.