Five ‘yes’ to the Greek proposal for electricity market reform

By Haris Fludopoulos

The Greek proposal to reform the electricity market in order to reduce the total cost by decoupling the price of electricity from the price of natural gas, was presented yesterday to the Council of Ministers of the EU. the Minister of Environment and Energy K. Skrekas.

The Greek proposal that had been distributed to the ministers of the EU member states. before the council it was received with positive comments from several countries, while after the presentation made by Mr. Skrekas, several ministers took the floor in order to take their positions.

As the Greek minister explained, the Greek market reform proposal proposes the separation of technologies into two categories: those that generate electricity regardless of the price of natural gas and which will operate with volume-based auctions, and natural gas that will priced as it is now. The weighted average value obtained for the cost of electricity with the proposed model is much lower than the current values. “The discussion on the new design of the market must start now. The system shows its strength and reliability in times of crisis. Outside of a crisis, all systems work well. The crisis shows if they are really effective,” stressed Mr. Skrekas.

The countries in favor

Immediately after Skrekas’ presentation, several ministers requested and received the floor. Italy, Cyprus, Romania, France and Spain were in favor of the Greek proposal, or at least in favor of the debate on reforming the market operation model.

The Italian minister welcomed Greece’s initiative and emphasized that his country is also studying a similar model. The Cypriot minister stressed that the proposed solution deserves further study. The Romanian counterpart emphasized that his country has always supported the optimization of market planning and added that the Greek proposal deserves to be studied and deepened further. The discussion on how the market works in emergency situations and how it should develop must be done, the Spanish minister emphasized, while the French minister emphasized that the Greek proposal is interesting and stated that she is ready to work on it and to submit proposals.

Germany welcomed the Greek initiative noting that it is worth discussing.

On the contrary, two countries, Luxembourg and Denmark, took a negative position, arguing that we should not risk jeopardizing their model of the market system.