Status: 09/28/2022 09:19 am
15 countries are calling for a European gas price cap to combat high energy prices. It should apply to deliveries from abroad and trade within the EU. Germany is against the measure.
As an emergency measure against high energy prices, more than half of the countries in the European Union have called for an EU-wide gas price cap. In a letter to the EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, their governments call on Simson to immediately present a proposal for a maximum price for gas.
According to the letter available to the dpa news agency, this should relate to deliveries from abroad and to transactions at trading venues within the EU.
Details remain open
The undersigned states did not provide any further details on the demands and left it open how high the cap should be. The Commission, which is responsible for legislative initiatives in the European Union, had not yet made any concrete proposals for a gas price cap.
Instead, she suggested first skimming off the excessive profits of oil and gas companies and electricity producers. With the money from these so-called random prizes, consumers should then be relieved.
Germany against price cap
According to the Commission and economists, a price limit would be an even more drastic intervention in the market. It is feared that this would result in third countries supplying less or no gas to EU countries and instead selling it to customers in other regions of the world.
The federal government in particular had spoken out against a price cap. Germany receives almost no gas from Russia anymore and pays heavily for supplies from other countries such as Norway.
“It would certainly be a big problem for Germany if you couldn’t bid higher than other member states to get the gas you need in Germany,” economist Georg Zachmann from the Bruegel think tank in Brussels told dpa. “It would be attractive for some well-supplied EU countries if the Germans could no longer buy the gas and drive up the prices.”
“Price cap and security of supply compatible”
However, the 15 states argue in their letter that a price cap “can be designed in such a way that security of supply and the free flow of gas within Europe are guaranteed, while at the same time our common goal of reducing gas demand is achieved.”
The letter was signed by the governments of Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
The energy ministers of the EU countries will meet on Friday to decide on possible emergency measures.