“We can’t stop here. We are in an energy war with Russia, winter is coming and we have to act now. I hope that the European Commission will present additional measures as soon as possible,” says the Czech Energy Minister, Josef Sikelain his capacity as rotating president of the European Union.
In an extraordinary meeting held this Friday, the energy ministers of the 27 have approved a new package of emergency measures to deal with the energy crisis. The regulation includes a Mandatory 5% cut in electricity consumption in peak hours, a cap on the benefits of low-cost technologies (renewable and nuclear) and a tax on oil companies.
Despite the speed with which this plan has gone ahead (presented by Ursula von der Leyen on September 14), most energy ministers admit that the new measures are insufficient to immediately lower the final bill that consumers pay and ask Brussels for more proposals. The new goal is to intervene in the gas market, although Member States disagree on how to do it.
[La UE aprueba recortar un 5% el consumo de luz y gravar los beneficios de las energéticas para rebajar la factura]
Specifically, the blockade of Germany and the Netherlands prevents the EU from setting a ceiling on the price of gas imported from third countries. A measure that has broad support among the rest of the Member States: Spain and 14 other countries have signed a joint letter in which they allege that this cap “would help mitigate inflationary pressure” and “limit extra profits in the sector.”
However, the Commission of Ursula von der Leyen It has aligned itself with the theses of the Germans and the Dutch and rejects setting a maximum price for all imported gas. The Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, has once again defended that the cap should be imposed only on Russian gas, both that which arrives by pipeline and LNG. That would limit the Kremlin’s ability to finance the war in Ukraine.
The Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, during her press conference this Friday
With the rest of the partners, such as Norway or Algeria, the EU must jointly negotiate price reductions, but not impose them. A blanket cap on all imported gas “would effectively shut down the European gas market and create security of supply risks,” says Simson. LNG producers could divert their shipments to Asia in search of better prices. Brussels does not completely close the door on setting a maximum price, but calls for a obligatory cut of the consumption superior to 15% already agreed.
Both the Czech Presidency and several Member States have criticized the reluctance and hesitation of the Community Executive and its delay in proposing measures. “We have to keep working. We have to do it urgently. What we have found on the table today is not enough. We would like the Commission to make us a much more complete proposal“, the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, has complained.
[Ribera critica que la Comisión Europea “se queda corta” en sus propuestas para intervenir el precio del gas]
“We have demanded that the risk of not acting be taken into consideration, the impact that not introducing that reference to the cap on gas entering the EU may have on domestic consumers (and especially industrial ones). In our opinion, that could lead to a serious problem of demand destruction and it is not reasonable that the only way to address this issue is through the general budgets of the States,” Ribera maintains.
“If we don’t put a limit on gas we could have a significant impact on the gross domestic product of the EUon industrial production and on consumers”, insisted the third vice-president. In her opinion, the priority should be to develop an alternative index to the Dutch TTF, which is now the one that sets the price but no longer reflects the reality of the market.
The Vice Chancellor of Germany, Robert Habeck, during the meeting this Friday in Brussels
France also supports the general cap on the price of imported gas, but also claims to be able to benefit from the ‘Iberian exception’ that Spain and Portugal already apply. “We can lower the price of electricity quickly. It would be about extending the Iberian mechanism to the whole of Europe. I know there is reluctance about this mechanism, but we have worked on it technically. We know what to do to avoid excess gas consumption and we know you can get up and running quickly. It is the kind of signal that companies need,” said the French Minister for Energy Transition, Agnés Pannier-Runacher.
But Germany is opposed both to the ‘Europeanization’ of the ‘Iberian exception’ and to imposing a cap on the price of imported gas. “Putting a fixed cap on the price of gas can only be done if it is explained what would happen if not enough gas comes to Europe. Because that is my question,” said the German Vice Chancellor, Robert Habeck.
The meeting room of the EU energy ministers during their extraordinary meeting this Friday
“And the only answer I always hear is that the shortage would be distributed throughout Europe. But I don’t think that’s politically sustainable. That would push Europe to its limits, probably to its end,” says Habeck. As for the Iberian mechanism, Berlin doubts that it is working “perfectly” because gas prices have risen and he does not believe that it constitutes a “convincing model” that can be applied throughout Europe.
In any case, the massive aid that Germany has just approved to deal with the energy crisis (200,000 million euros) They have alarmed the rest of the partners, who accuse Berlin of waging war on its own, creating distortions of competition and putting the single European market at risk. The rest of the Member States do not have the budgetary margin to deploy this bazooka and that is why they are calling for European solutions.
The toughest has been the outgoing Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, who has published a statement, without directly naming Germany, and calls for “avoiding dangerous and unjustified distortions of the internal market and keeping Europe united again in the face of the emergency” . “Faced with the common threats of our time, we cannot divide ourselves according to the margin in our national budgetsDraghi denounces.
