The European Union is preparing “an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the energy market”. This was announced by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen during a press conference in Bled in Slovenia. “The surge in electricity prices clearly shows the limits of the current functioning of the market which was conceived in a very different context,” said she von der Leyen.
The issue of the continuing surge in gas prices and the need for market reform will be discussed at the emergency meeting of EU energy ministers to be held in Prague on 9 September.
«We must resolve -. said the minister for industry and trade of the Czech Republic, Josef Sikela, who has held the rotating EU presidency since 1 July – the problem of the energy market. The solution at a European level is by far the best we have ».
Síkela embraces the thesis supported for some time by Italy with Draghi that Europe must separate the prices of gas from those of electricity. Among other things, Síkela traced the increase in energy prices, in addition to the war in Ukraine and the limitation of gas supplies from Russia, also, for example, to the difficult situation with nuclear power plants in France, where about the half of the nuclear reactors are not in operation due to maintenance and technical problems. According to the minister, there will be a need for greater liquidity in the energy market and market interventions will be needed, which states can study together with companies that buy energy, to help prevent market malfunctions. According to the minister, the European Union is closer to a common approach to resolving energy prices than it has ever been before. The minister said he hoped for a pan-European solution, because in his opinion it is the best and cheapest option.