European Union countries have agreed to develop formulas that can make energy cheaper today.It’s like working to expand the “Iberian mechanism” across the EU, creating a voluntary joint gas purchasing system or designing a cap on the price of this hydrocarbon.
After more than eleven hours of “intense but constructive” negotiations, EU Heads of State and Government an agreement of minimums that brings the positions closer Between a bloc of more interventionist states, mainly Spain, France, Belgium and Greece, and Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Nordic countries and Germany, another state very reluctant to take measures that could alter markets and endanger gas supplies. Baltics. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a press conference that 27 of the Energy Ministers will be developing the “very technical” aspects of the political agreement reached by the leaders. The EU has no “taboos” in the energy debate.
Underlining the agreement as the most important criterion, Macron said, “Our first goal is to reduce gas prices.” creating a “temporary dynamic price corridor” For natural gas processes”, according to the text adopted by Twenty-Seven. gas price cap Macron said the cost of energy would come down “mechanically,” in an initiative that has frightened many capitals who fear that imposition of these conditions will drive away liquefied natural gas ships and that the EU will not be able to replace the gas that has barely reached it from Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said, “It’s like going to a bar and telling the bartender you want to pay half for a beer. It won’t happen. Customers can’t lower energy prices. They can only diversify and compete.” during the peak.
The leaders also commissioned the Commission to examine the expansion of the remaining 27 of the “Iberian mechanism” implemented in Spain and Portugal, which limits the contagion of gas shortages in the electricity market. Again, many countries are demanding a peninsula-like system, but others fear it could happen. increase gas consumption or means that European consumers’ money used to finance the system means that non-EU countries such as the UK, Switzerland or Balkan countries can benefit from cheap electricity imports from the EU. The leaders therefore commissioned the Commission to prepare a “cost-benefit analysis” before Europeanizing the system, especially Spain and Portugal, where renewable energy is plentiful, electricity generation is scarce, and has little connection with Europe. the rest of the EU.
The third highlight of the agreed results is create a common gas purchasing systemBut it will be voluntary. For only 15% of gas reserves (about 3.5% of the EU’s total consumption), companies will be required to submit a joint purchase offer. “Companies will have to add their demands. Offers will come and companies will be free to accept them or not,” von der Leyen said.
The summit started with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz leaning on the inactivity he has fallen into in energy policy for a year and the growing distance in the Franco-German axis, which is the backbone of the EU. “I don’t think it’s good for Germany or Europe to be in self-isolation,” Macron said as he reached the summit after the joint cabinet meeting with Germany, scheduled for next week, was canceled the day before. Brussels, the French president and Scholz agreed to hold the meeting alone.
The results, which were vague at some points and limited by security measures at others, left a range of impressions, from the positive reading of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo to the “greater ambition” claimed by Spanish sources. The ball goes to the Energy Ministers of the Twenty-Seven, who will hold their first meeting in Luxembourg next Tuesday to improve and develop the leaders’ political mandate on a technical and complex issue where “the devil is in the details.” According to a European source.