Energy crisis: why does Belgium not cap gas prices?
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Despite an energy check – which has come into force with some movement – many households fear the end of the month and energy bills. All means are good for not overheating your home. Energy sobriety is increasingly turning into energy frugality, along the convolutions of ever-higher energy prices, and Coupled with runaway inflation (which reached 12.27% last month, its highest rate high since June 1975).
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So why has the Belgian state not decided to cap energy prices, as France has done? What prevents Belgium from doing the same?
Already, we must realize what such a measure would entail. In the columns of RTL, Bertrand Candelon, economist at UCLouvain explains the problem: ” Capping means that we put selling prices below market prices, so if the consumer buys at a price below that of the market, ultimately it is the State that will have to subsidize, compensate so there will be a public debt, that’s what we see in France.”
Concretely, if this ceiling would be an “apparent” aid at first glance and in the short term, over time, this aid would become a poisoned gift, inflating the public debt even more.
In addition, energy prices, and gas prices in particular, are decided at European level. By grouping all the energy markets into a single European market, this allows Europe to have more weight and to be more credible during negotiations with gas-producing countries.
What is stuck at European level?
The solution will be European or it won’t be. But it is clear that with talks initiated in September, there is not yet a concrete solution in place. And this despite the intense work in favor of a cap on European prices led by Alexander de Cro and Tinne Van der Streaten, Minister of Energy.
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Already, some countries are not in favor of such a measure. This is the case of Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, for example, which fear that a cap on energy and gas prices will drive out and divert gas suppliers from European markets. The 27 are divided and the discussions are more than heated.
A measure that is not a measure
The latest solution put on the table by the European Commission? A price blocking mechanism that was automatically put in place when prices per megawatt hour exceeded 275 euros for two weeks.
But that’s not all. In addition to this ceiling to be exceeded, the price of gas will also have to exceed the price of liquefied natural gas on the world market by 58 euros for ten consecutive days during these two weeks.
By way of comparison, the last time that energy prices exceeded this amount was last August and prices in recent days have been flirting with 125 euros per megawatt hour.
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“The European Commission has gone to put a ceiling that is almost unattainable when what needs to be done is to change the way the market works. 275 euros per megawatt hour is a ceiling that we will never reach. It or nothing, it’s the same”, despair Marie-Christine Marghem (MR), former Federal Minister of Energy in the columns of the DH.
This measure, which disappoints some and annoys countries in favor of a cap on energy prices, will however be discussed again at the next meeting of European energy ministers on 19 December. The ministers are trying to develop this relevant proposal from the European Commission, but for the moment it is the only European track proposed. In the meantime, it’s every man for himself, willy-nilly.