In the face of the inexorable increase in energy prices, the debate is restarted within the twenty-seven on the measures to be taken without compromising the economic recovery, and on the relationship with Russia.
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Faced with the outbreak of energy prices and the question of the provisions to lighten the invoice and not to compromise the economic recovery after the CVIV-19 crisis, the twenty-seven appear more and more divided. In the short term, they all know that Europe can not do anything and only actions at the national level are conceivable. Moreover, nineteen of them, including France, the Netherlands, Spain or Italy, have already decided on decreases in various taxes and subsidies. At longer expires, on the other hand, they do not share the same diagnosis. The Council of Europeans Energy Ministers Tuesday, October 26, once again highlighted these divisions between three camps. And we can not see what ground a compromise could be built.
On the one hand, the northern countries of the European Union (EU), which see in the current flight of energy prices a purely cyclical phenomenon, defend, therefore, the status quo. Neither the European electricity or gas market nor the measures taken to combat global warming as part of the Green Deal are for something, explain, explain, in a joint statement, published Monday, October 25, Austria Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Latvia and the Netherlands.
Conversely, France, Spain, Greece, Romania and the Czech Republic advocate a redesign of the gas market passing through better supply coordination – or even storage or purchases -, and A reform of the electricity market, the “aberrant” functioning, as the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno the Mayor has often said. “Every increase of 1 euro per megawattish of the natural gas price represents an additional cost, at the level of electricity bills, 2.7 billion euros for European consumers,” wrote Madrid, in a communication on the subject, Monday night.
Foreign gas dependence
Today, the price of electricity is indexed to that of the sources of extra energy, which can avoid any breach of supply, that is to say, most often Gas or coal plants. France, which draws 70% of its production from its nuclear power plants, or Spain, which has invested a lot in renewables, want this price to integrate, in one way or another, the cost of production – less high in their case – from the country where it is manufactured.
“This proposal makes no sense for other European countries that produce their electricity from the gas”, entrusts a diplomat. Particularly affected by the flight of electricity, Spain requests the Commission, if structural reform was not initiated, to consider a system that would allow a Member State, in exceptional cases. , to abstract from this operation.
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