European Energy Ministers will meet again on September 30 in Brussels to examine the emergency measures proposed by the European Commission to counteract the explosive increase in natural gas and electricity prices caused by the war in Ukraine, reports AFP.
“We have just convened another extraordinary meeting of the Council of Energy Ministers to discuss the European Commission’s proposals”, the details of which are expected later this week, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Sikela wrote in a Twitter post on Tuesday . “On September 30 we will finish what we started last week,” added the Czech official, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The Energy Ministers of the EU member states already had an extraordinary meeting on September 9, at which they declared themselves in favor of a set of emergency measures to stop the explosive increase in electricity bills, for which the price is correlated with gas quotations natural, quotes that exploded after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, according to Agerpres.
At the September 9 meeting, the Energy Ministers asked the Commission to prepare, in a few days, “a solid and concrete proposal”. For his part, the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, promised “unprecedented measures to respond to an unprecedented situation”.
The European executive is to finalize a detailed legislative draft later this week.
After examining the first proposals put forward by the Commission, the energy ministers of the 27 EU member states on Friday received well the idea of collecting the exceptional profits generated by electricity producers that do not use natural gas, such as nuclear power plants or renewables, and whose production costs are much lower than the market price of electricity, and redistribute them in support of vulnerable consumers. Also, the European ministers mentioned a possible ceiling on the price of natural gas imported into the EU, a measure that Brussels would like to apply in the first phase only to Russian natural gas that reaches Europe through gas pipelines.
In response, Moscow has threatened to completely stop gas exports to Europe if a price cap is imposed, which has raised concerns in eastern member states such as Hungary, which are almost entirely dependent on Russian hydrocarbons.
Also, after the EU member states agreed to reduce their natural gas consumption in July, the European Commission also proposed setting “mandatory targets” for reducing electricity demand. A working document consulted by AFP provides for a reduction of “at least 10% of net monthly consumption” and a 5% reduction during peak hours.