“When Vladimir Putin declared energy war on Europe he wanted to harm their democratic societies and their economies but he will not succeed, the European Union is united against his aggression,” said Jozef Sikela, Minister of Industry of the Czech Republic, today. that this semester holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. “Now we know exactly which way to go,” he said before detailing the four major agreements reached today by the European energy ministers at the extraordinary meeting held today in Brussels. Now it is up to the European Commission to turn those ideas into legislative proposals, which will happen next Tuesday, September 13.
The first thing that European governments urgently want to do is put a cap on the profits of companies producing electricity from renewables and nuclear power, among other low-carbon technologies, so that those funds go to help the consumers. Fossil fuel companies -oil and gas- will be asked for a “solidarity contribution” to help mitigate the impact of the crisis.
At this point, the mandate of the ministers fits with the initiative proposed by the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, this week, but not the instructions that have been given regarding the idea of ??capping the price of Russian gas . Although Von der Leyen’s proposal focuses exclusively on the gas that arrives by pipeline from Russia, an idea that collides with the misgivings of Germany, Austria and other Central European countries highly dependent on Moscow, the European governments have asked the community executive that extends its scope and analyzes the impact that putting a cap on the price of all types of gas would have. The European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, has been reluctant about the advisability of such a measure, since according to Brussels it can leave the EU in a situation of risk of gas shortage. “I think we have given very clear instructions to the Commission,” the Czech Minister of Industry told La Vanguardia, when asked about the discrepancies with Simson.
The third issue on which the European ministers have agreed is that the European Commission present a coordinated savings plan to reduce electricity consumption, as proposed by the European Commission, which states that the reduction percentages should be mandatory. The Czech presidency of the EU has been more favorable instead to a system similar to the one adopted to reduce gas consumption, which provides for voluntary savings targets that can become binding in the event of a crisis. Spain has requested that any proposal take into account the efforts that some countries have already made in this regard.
Finally, the extraordinary council of energy ministers has asked the European Commission to present emergency liquidity instruments so that all energy operators have the capacity to continue participating in the market. “I am willing to convene another extraordinary council of ministers before the end of this month to adopt the Commission’s proposals,” Sikela announced. The intervention measures discussed today are of a temporary and emergency nature, a first step to later address the dysfunctions of the European energy market revealed by Putin’s manipulation of the gas price.
