Rutte said this Wednesday in a debate with the House of Representatives. Rutte was in the House to explain what the Dutch commitment will be at the next EU summit, which this Thursday and Friday will be largely dominated by skyrocketing gas prices, partly caused by the war in Ukraine. Earlier this month it emerged that 27 EU leaders agree that the price of gas needs to be lowered, but that there are disagreement is about how to achieve this.
“What remains under consideration is the joint purchase of gas by European Member States,” said Rutte. “This will help them gain more market power.” After all, as a large customer, the European Union can negotiate lower prices, especially if long-term contracts are concluded.
Last week, the Netherlands also discussed with Germany about the European gas supply and were then awarded broad support of the other Member States. According to Rutte, the proposal to jointly purchase “15% of gas storage facilities in Europe” will be discussed at the EU summit. For this scenario, Brussels mainly looks to reputable gas producers such as Norway and the United States.
Joint buying should not only create more bargaining power, it should also prevent Member States from making new offers against each other, pushing the price of gas to extremes, as happened last summer. Furthermore, the joint purchase should lead to gas stocks as full for the winter of 2023-2024 as they are now.
European maximum price
Rutte is not in favor of a European gas price ceiling, he reiterated in the House on Wednesday. Although the majority of EU Member States – including France and Italy – are in favor of such a maximum price, the Netherlands and Germany fear that gas producers will then move to other regions willing to pay a higher price. .
“So the gas will still come this way?” Rutte told the House about the price cap. “The risk is security of supply.” Due to disagreement on this between member states, the EU summit on Thursday and Friday will mainly discuss the proposal to smooth out extreme price outliers only with temporary measures.
For example, the European Commission wants to ask Member States for permission to soon come up with a detailed proposal to smooth out brief spikes in gas prices with a “dynamic price limit”. In this case, the gas may temporarily not be sold at a price above this maximum price on the Dutch gas exchange.
But Rutte is also “worried” about this plan. You think there is still some ‘battle over that’. You expect final decisions on European measures will not be taken until November. You stress that “the challenge now is to lower energy prices”.
Rutte also believes that energy consumption should be reduced. “Aside from whether or not you believe in climate change, it is also really necessary because we will have too little gas in the next period,” Rutte said. “So that transition is very important: away from the gas.” With the escalation of the conflict with Russia, a way out of the energy crisis is not in sight. Rutte stressed that the Netherlands is committed to the “accelerated reduction” of their dependence on Russian gas.
