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The energy ministers of the European Union will meet extraordinarily on September 9 to discuss new measures to respond to the energy crisis caused by high gas prices. The European Commission is evaluating a profound reform of the system.
“The skyrocketing electricity prices are exposing the limitations of our current electricity market design.” With these words, the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, announced that the community bloc is working on an “emergency intervention” in the electricity market.
Von der Leyen assured that the electricity market was developed under different circumstances and with different objectives and that “it is no longer suitable for those purposes.”
The skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing the limitations of our electricity market design. It was developed for different circumstances.
We are working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market.
President @vonderleyen at #BSF2022 pic.twitter.com/WlrwulAobm
— European Commission ?? (@EU_Commission) August 29, 2022
The need for structural reform has been raised on several occasions and gains strength with the increase in gas prices after the decrease in Russian supply.
And, although several countries in the community bloc have already drawn up their own savings plans, within the group of 27 they are already analyzing how to tackle the problem collectively and not individually.
Power prices in Europe, fueled by a surge in gas prices, have soared to new records almost daily, leaving governments scrambling to ease the hit on homes and businesses hit by rising energy prices. energy bills.
They call an energy emergency meeting
The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union this semester, convened the bloc’s energy ministers for September 9 in Brussels to address the issue.
Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela said that one of the proposals he will bring to the table will be a cap on the price of gas used for electricity production, as well as market intervention to prevent its malfunction.
Positions like this are supported by other governments in the bloc. Over the weekend, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, whose government had previously been skeptical about energy price caps, backed the idea of such a measure across the European Union, amid what he called the “madness” in the energy markets.
The price of electricity this Monday was paid at more than 630 euros per megawatt hour in Germany, Belgium or Denmark and above 730 euros in France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Croatia or Austria.
With EFE and Reuters
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