The European Commission surprised the governments of the member countries with five ideas for dealing with the energy crisis, dividing states, six diplomats commented to Politico. That is likely to give Commission President Ursula von der Leyen room to maneuver ahead of her State of the European Union address next week, which is expected to push forward an EU-wide effort to rein in natural gas prices. gas and electricity.
EU energy ministers will discuss energy prices during an emergency summit on Friday.
THE Ursula von der Leyen proposed five “immediate” moves to help smooth Europe’s energy crisis:
- setting a price ceiling (ceiling) on Russian natural gas
- mandatory measures to reduce electricity demand
- cap on revenue for companies that generate electricity from low-cost imgs, with “windfalls” going to help consumers
- solidarity tax on the fossil fuel companies making big profits
- facilitating the support of troubled utilities.
Two measures stood out, however, from the Commission and EU countries, several diplomats said after a meeting of EU ambassadors.
The first is that credit is provided to utilities to respond to the current high price environment.
The second is the taxation of super profits – although EU ambassadors wanted assurances that the proceeds of such taxes would stay in the right country. Sorting out the details will be important, as power plants, which are paid to switch on or off as needed to balance the grid, often do so at the request of utilities located across national borders.
The most contentious issue is the cap on the price of Russian natural gas – largely intended to financially punish the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine – with capitals having “very conflicting views”, a European diplomat said.
Germany has said it is “skeptical” of the idea. Hungary, Russia’s closest EU ally, is against it, as are Slovakia and at least two other countries, diplomats said.
Others, including Poland and Italy, want the commission to go further and cap the price of all natural gas imported into the EU. Von der Leyen said it was something the commission was “considering” but Brussels was generally lines against the idea.
While Norway, now the EU’s biggest natural gas supplier, has left open the possibility of being positive about a cap, there are doubts about the US as Democrats face tough mid-term elections in November.
Hungary also wants any energy package to be agreed unanimously rather than through an emergency procedure that requires a majority, as the Commission wants, a diplomat said.
The idea of reducing electricity demand is popular, but while von der Leyen’s proposal calls for the reductions to be mandatory, countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece and Poland want such measures to be optional.
The Commission did not deal with the issue of decoupling its prices natural gas and electricity, although this is something that many countries want to happen.
Many countries were surprised by von der Leyen’s rush to publicly announce the proposals, diplomats said, as national experts discussed technical details ahead of a meeting of energy ministers on Friday.
But despite the grumbling, the capitals broadly agreed that von der Leyen was right to take the reins of the debate.
Source: News Beast
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