The European Union's economic problems mean it should be more flexible in the way it promotes a low-carbon economy and broaden the focus of its energy policy, beyond purely reducing greenhouse gas emissions to also ensure that energy will remain affordable, the bloc's energy chief said.

"Today we are looking at climate protection in its entirety, taking into account that energy has to remain affordable for industries and private households," Guenther Oettinger, the European commissioner for energy, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Any new carbon or clean-energy targets should be more "modest and pragmatic" in light of the continent's economic woes, he said.

Mr. Oettinger's comments signal a shift in the EU's clean-energy strategy, with a bigger focus on keeping down costs to preserve the competitiveness of the bloc's economy, just as European lawmakers debate new carbon and renewables targets for the decade to 2030. When the EU set its last binding targets for 2020 for greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and efficiency back in 2007, it focused almost exclusively on climate protection, Mr. Oettinger said.

Despite the increased focus on affordability, the EU should continue to cut emissions and expand renewable energy, he said.

The laws agreed five years ago mandated that by 2020 the EU must reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20% compared with 1990, while 20% of the energy it consumes must come from renewable sources such as wind. Mr. Oettinger didn't commit to a new emissions reduction target for 2030, but said that expanding it to 40% would be the next logical step as part of a long-term strategy to reduce them by as much as 95% by mid-century.

Any new targets should still be legally binding, he said.

Mr. Oettinger's call for a new approach comes as two key planks of the EU's clean-energy strategy--renewable energy subsidies and carbon dioxide emissions trading--face significant challenges.

An oversupply of permits to emit carbon dioxide has pushed their price on the open market to historic lows of around five euros ($6.53) a ton, providing little of the intended incentive to invest in greener energy technology.

The EU is in the process of working on a fix for the ailing carbon trade scheme, seeking to eliminate the oversupply of permits by delaying their auction by up to five years. Mr. Oettinger said he fully supports this plan, known as backloading, but was skeptical that other proposals to permanently cancel excess permits and eliminate oversupply in the carbon market would go ahead.

"This is why hopes that backloading would raise CO2 prices astronomically are unlikely to materialize," he said.

Mr. Oettinger also criticized EU member states for repeated interventions since the economic crisis took hold into national energy markets, which have often undermined the EU's declared energy goals.

"There's a growing number of national governments that often and rashly interfere with developing structures," he said, referring to retroactive cuts to renewable energies subsidies in Spain .

"We need less unilateralism. That's why we are promoting a Europeanization of renewable energies support mechanisms in the long term," Mr. Oettinger said.

At present, all EU member states have subsidy schemes for renewable energy of their own, which experts have blamed for an uncoordinated and inefficient expansion of clean energy over the past few years.

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