Portugal expects agreement on Monday on price ceiling on the gas exchange
ONE after an extraordinary Council of EU Energy ministers, which lasted for about 10 hours in search of a compromise among the 27, the Secretary of State for the Environment and Energy, João Galamba, said that “there have been some advances, there have been consensus on a large part of the proposal, namely on some safeguards that were intended by some of the countries, but there was no agreement on the central theme, which is the question of the price level from which this market regulation mechanism would be activated” .
According to Galamba, “the Czech leadership tried several solutions, but an agreement was not possible”, because “there are in fact different positions” in relation to prices, “and, therefore, what was agreed was to return to this topic on Monday “, December 19, the date on which a new Council of Ministers for Energy of the EU is held in Brussels, “and try to close the functioning around the market correction mechanism”.
Revealing that the updated proposal of the European Commission “was around 200 euros”, the Secretary of State for Energy indicated that this “would continue to be too high a price for a significant group of countries”.
João Galamba noted that Portugal, which considered the price very low, “would be available to make this proposal viable, in a compromise logic”, as well as other Member States, but that compromise solution was still not possible.
“There is, in fact, at this moment a majority position capable of approving an agreement around this price. Let’s hope that these days until Monday have reached a solution”, he declared.
At issue is the temporary emergency measure proposed at the end of November by the European Commission to create a price correction mechanism in certain transactions on the Securities Transfer Market in relation to natural gas, the TTF, which could be triggered by high prices for several consecutive days to limit excessive increases.
The executive wants to move forward with this temporary mechanism for prohibited prices in the TTF while working on a new complementary reference index, which he will present in early 2023 to include real conditions in the European market, such as the use of liquefied natural gas.
Geopolitical tensions due to the war in Ukraine have affected the European energy market because the EU still depends on Russian fossil fuels like gas (despite having reduced uniformly by pipeline from 40% to less than 10%), fearing supply cuts and disruptions this winter.
Pipeline deliveries of Russian gas to the EU dropped by 80% in September this year compared to the same period last year.
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