Energy: Draghi to the EU, take urgent action, limit price increases
The heads of state and government of the twenty-seven countries of the European Union discussed the increase in energy prices for over five hours. Everyone agrees on the need to take urgent action to overcome the current crisis, but the positions are divergent on the medium and long-term strategy. So much so that the more than five hours of debate were enough for a common final conclusion.
DRAGONS TO THE EU: “ACT SOON TO LIMIT THE INCREASES IN THE PRICE OF ENERGY”
“We must act as soon as possible to limit the increases in the price of energy, to preserve the recovery and safeguard the ecological transition”, exhorted the Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, in his speech. According to European sources, the premier thanked the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, for the “toolbox” presented, but said that we need to be more ambitious and accelerate on the next steps. In particular, according to Draghi, we need to work on the interconnections front, and on the reserves front. Not only that: inventories of the reserves present in Europe must be produced immediately, with the aim of protecting all Member States from market pressures. The Spanish premier, Pedro Sanchez, did not pass the Commission’s toolbox with flying colors, defined as “a good first step but clearly insufficient”. “We would like to go faster, but in Brussels the steps are moving at a slower pace than we would like,” he highlighted. However, Madrid “will not give up its efforts to find common solutions in addition to those already adopted at national level”. “We are always aiming for greater ambition and to incorporate a sense of urgency into this debate because this situation can undermine the competitiveness of the European economy,” Sanchez warned. For his part, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, while specifying that “the energy mix is national responsibility”, said he wanted to reach “a common European approach” in the strategy against price increases, in particular in the solutions to medium and long term.
It is precisely on the energy mix that the debate has become more intense. Several countries, including Italy, France and Germany, asked for the national peculiarities of the various energy mixes to be taken into consideration in the Commission’s assessments (also for the Fit for 55 package). For example, France would like to focus even more on nuclear power, Italy cannot do without gas (at least at this stage), just as Germany is still very much linked to coal. In her speech to the European Parliament, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, complained about Europe’s excessive dependence on gas but nevertheless acknowledged “the maintenance of the role of natural gas as a transition fuel”. The hypothesis remains on the table, which will have to be better developed in the Extraordinary Council of Energy Ministers to be held Tuesday in Luxembourg, of a common storage of gas. The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, mentioned the option of allowing EU countries to purchase gas from a centralized European platform and also to work to increase gas storage and reduce market distortions in the short term. ” (obviously against Brussels) of the premieres of Poland and Hungary. The first, Mateusz Morawiecki, blamed Nord Stream 2 for making Europe even more dependent on Moscow’s energy blackmail. The second, Viktor Orban, accused Frans Timmermans (deputy President of the Commission that holds the Climate dossier) to “kill the middle class with an imaginative climate policy”.
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