The meetings of Council of the European Union they are reminiscent of the conferences of regional presidents or, without going that far, a neighborhood meeting where each one ‘sweeps for his house’. This Monday, energy ministers They met to agree on a common position on the reform of the European electricity market. Something they didn’t get. The meeting started from the first minute with two very different positions, personified in the Spanish minister Teresa Ribera and the German minister Robert Habek.
The differences are mainly concentrated in two aspects: the ‘role’ of coal and the way in which member countries finance aid to consumers. A debate reminiscent of what was experienced in the two years that the energy crisis lasted. Germany He faces his detoxification of Russian gas obsessed with ensuring the supply of energy and using his fiscal capacity to compensate for the high prices paid by his industry and their families. Spainwith less dependence on Russia, prioritizes price over supply and, with less economic capacity than Germany, pushes to take income from companies in order to distribute aid.
“The electricity market for coal plants is not in line with emissions targets, even if they should be withdrawn they are useful as long as we need them”, explained Robert Habeck. A minister who is one of the visible faces of The Greens in the German government, but has not hesitated to go hand in hand with Poland in defending respect for the role of coal.
“Providing a different subsidy system for coal plants is something that goes too far and there has to be another way to solve this problem,” added the German minister. Poland and Germany, after the closure of their nuclear plants, dependent on more than 50% of fossil fuels to produce electricity and coal has become a resource while they replace Russian gas.
The debate revolves around the role of the so-called “capacity market”, those plants or storage tools that charge for being ready when the system needs them to ensure supply. Ribera’s Spanish proposal proposed withdrawing gas and nuclear from these markets. The Germans, for their part, do not agree that if coal enters the capacity markets it will be under worse conditions.
“We must be careful with the signals we give in the field of emissions”, replied the Spanish minister. “We must demand maximum consistency in the intensities of CO2 emissions that occur in the markets, despite the fact that it is the answer for some member states with difficulties in guaranteeing supply to their population,” Ribera pointed out.
Ribera and German aid
Spain has also defended, before the commissioner Kadri Simson and the 26 European ‘colleagues’, that care must be taken when talking about public money. Teresa Ribera is “concerned” that they are issued the signals that are being transmitted to energy operators on how the European Union would react to a new energy and economic crisis.
“Saying that we will do it based on the public budget is already a very important signal for market operators and I am not sure that it is the most appropriate signal.”, affirms the Spanish minister. A clear response to what the German minister has called “flexibility in the redistribution of income.” “we need flexibility Because if not, these aids will hardly have an effect, neither for domestic consumers nor for the industry”, has defended Robert Habeck.
Spain relies on countries like portugal or greece to defend that, in times of crisis, it is necessary to limit the income of nuclear, hydroelectric or renewable energy in order to use that extra income to help consumers. An alternative that the European Union limited in the last crisis in 180 euros per MWh, with Spain being more demanding at 67 euros.
But there is a broad consensus among the member countries that this alternative cannot appear structurally in the reform. A discrepancy that shows why the Council of the European Union has left the table without agreement. A rapprochement that is expected for an extraordinary meeting in July and, to the chagrin of Germany, with Spain already holding the presidency of the Council.
