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Electricity and gas bills keep going up. How expensive can it be in a year?
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Increase in energy prices was on tuesday [26.10.2021] the subject of an extraordinary meeting of ministers from 27 EU countries. Kadri Simson, EU energy commissioner, said 19 countries have already introduced or announced their national bill subsidies electricity. Among them are, among others France (one hundred euro 5.8 million households), Italy (reduction of VAT on energy) or the Netherlands, which during yesterday’s deliberations informed about social support and a reduction in energy taxes for some households and medium and small enterprises. Such short-term solutions, including state aid for companies, are in line with the European Commission’s proposals from mid-October.
But there is no consensus among EU countries as to how Brussels should act on a common EU level.
We wrote about it on the Gazeta.pl homepage also yesterday, announcing the meeting in Luxembourg:
Spain is the loudest calling for a major correction of the EU energy market, and on Tuesday it proposed an ad hoc anti-crisis upper limit for the wholesale gas price in the EU and such a limit on the price of CO2 emissions permits (in the EU ETS). On the other hand, Poland is trying to take advantage of the current price crisis to slow down or limit EU reforms for the energy transformation (Fit-For-55) and to crack down on alleged speculations on the ETS market.
– We need to quickly reform this market so that the speculations on us inflate cen energy – argued Deputy Minister Adam Guibourge-Czetwertyński. In turn, France supported the ideas of the Spaniards to weaken the link fart prices and gas on the EU market, which under the current conditions would help countries with a greater share of renewable energy sources or large production from nuclear power plants.
Germany: Let’s wait out the hike
However, a coalition of nine countries – including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark – was firmly against any rapid changes in the EU energy market and CO2 emissions permits. – We should not have too much expectations of action at the EU level. We should not pursue hasty decisions that would undermine our climate goals and raise prices in the long term, said German Deputy Minister Andreas Feicht. The coalition focused on Berlin argues that the EU should simply – with possible national social support – patiently withstand the current increase in energy prices, which is part of the global free-market trend.
Commissioner Simson informed that the services of the European Commission are already collecting information about potential manipulations by “main suppliers” of gas, which is a response to calls for, inter alia, Poland to investigate Russia’s role in driving up energy prices. – The Commission should immediately launch an antitrust investigation against Gazprom. And for the future, ensure full enforcement of EU law in the case Nord Stream 2 – Guibourge-Czetwertyński appealed. In mid-November, Simson expects a preliminary analysis of the movements in the ETS market, but – this in turn rejects Poland’s arguments – “so far there is no evidence that speculation is the main factor influencing ETS prices”.
When the European Commission last summer presented the “Fit-For-55” project, the most violent disputes between EU commissioners concerned new the emission allowance trading scheme for housing (mainly heating) and road transport. And now the probability is increasing that this element will fall out of “Fit-For-55” in the work of the European Parliament and member states, despite the assurances of many ministers that the Green Deal is not to blame for the current energy increases. “The Green Deal is part of the solution to our troubles, not part of the problem,” emphasized Minister Jernej Vrtovec on Tuesday, who chaired the proceedings on behalf of the Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council.
Joint gas purchases?
Spaniards continue to promote the idea of joint crisis gas procurement by willing EU countries to increase their bargaining power in price negotiations, and to coordinate the stored gas reserves in the EU. The European Commission continues to “analyze” these demands. “But joint gas procurement would never replace ordinary contracts between private companies,” Simson said yesterday. Joint purchases, which would strengthen the EU’s position vis-à-vis Gazprom, were a key element of the “energy union” promoted by Poland in 2014, but rejected.
Poland and France are now playing together in a tactical alliance for the early qualification – for the purposes of EU regulations – of gas and nuclear energy as “green”, which would have a positive impact on related investments in the coming decades. Commissioner Simson admitted that natural gas and nuclear were “stable sources of energy for the transition” but did not details the upcoming decision as to their possible “greenness”.
Today’s disagreement between ministers on coordinated EU action on high energy prices means that this inflaming topic is sure to come back in preparation for the December EU summit.
The article comes from the site German wave.
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