Slovakia should negotiate, not threaten. The solution is a ceiling for emission allowances
Slovakia should negotiate, not threaten. The solution is a ceiling for emission allowances
According to KDH, regardless of the European negotiations, the government should present its own solutions that are within its competence and for which households, hospitals, municipalities, and companies have been waiting for months.
The government is not supposed to threaten the last states, but to negotiate and bring forward proposals for pan-European effective solutions to the energy crisis. It should also insist on temporarily capping the prices of emission permits on the European market at the pre-pandemic level. It would have a significant impact on the entire European Union. He claims the Christian Democratic Movement.
“The prices of emission permits have been around 80 euros per ton of quota in recent months, which is five times higher than before the pandemic. If the prices of emission permits were to be significantly reduced for the time needed to overcome the current problems, this would not only translate into lower prices for electricity produced from coal, but the EU would confirm that it can take extraordinary measures in an extraordinary situation, while environmental policy can still remain a priority ,” explains economic expert and member of the KDH management Jozef Hajko.
According to him, the administratively ordered ceiling price of emission permits was also a good signal for other producers and especially consumers of electricity that there is no room for price speculation today.
According to the movement, emission power plants that buy coal-fired power plants are involved in allowing high electricity in the European market. “Germany, as the largest European economy and Slovakia’s most important trading partner, today produces a third of its electricity from coal. In the Slovak power plants, which provide two-thirds of the electricity in Slovakia, they use coal to produce six percent of the energy,” KDH explains.
“The government should come to Brussels with pan-European solutions of this type and negotiate responsibly, not threaten and slam the door just because it didn’t prepare enough for the negotiations during the summer. The government itself underlined that the nationalization of Slovak Power Plants’ contracts is a last resort. However, when he pulls it out immediately after the first botched negotiation as a means of pressure, it looks like there probably won’t be any crisis plan and I hope everything turns out well. This is irresponsible and not right,” assured Hajko.
As I remind you, such a danger is dangerous and can harm Slovakia, because the republic functions as an island. It could backfire on residents and businesses, he says, as layers of bonds could clog up natural gas transportation routes. Today, two thirds of the gas flows to Slovakia precisely through the EU states.
“It is good that the government was inspired by our earlier proposal and wants to request the transfer of unspent European funds to combat expensive energy, but in today’s situation it is certainly not enough. In this different situation, there is nothing left but to continue negotiating and looking for allies. The closest ones are the V4 neighboring states and others. Such a great Slovak interest, which the government must heed,” appeals Hajko, saying that from the point of view of dependence on supplies of energy raw materials from Russia, Slovakia is still one of the most vulnerable EU states.
According to KDH, regardless of the European negotiations, the government should present its own solutions that are within its competence and for which households, hospitals, municipalities, and companies have been waiting for months. The movement reminds her of the appeal from last year to urgently adopt the law on energy poverty, which determined how and to whom to help precisely in the situation that Slovakia and Europe are facing today.