The only concrete thing that was said at the informal EU summit at Alden Biesen Castle on Thursday was the proposal to separate gas from electricity in price setting. This was stated by the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, Robert Fico (Smer-SD), after the end of the negotiations.
Fico reminded journalists on board the plane that a decision had been made that at the next summit in March, the President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, would present a summary of measures that are intended to increase the competitiveness of the EU as such. He stated that the sentence had been passed that the most serious problem that the Union must solve immediately is high energy prices.
Competitiveness can also be increased through medium-term or long-term measures, but we are all worried about electricity prices. “I welcomed the fact that there is agreement, at least on the issue of urgency. I used again as an example what we did with Slovalco, when the previous government did not help this company and it had to close production due to high electricity prices,” he said. He added that instead of a factory that produced huge amounts of primary aluminium, the EU now imports several million tonnes of aluminium from China.
At the summit, Fico supported Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who criticised the emissions trading system (ETS 1). “We argued that emissions trading had become the subject of speculation that they were increasing the price of electricity. Various proposals were made, for example, to cap the maximum price of such an emission trading system at 30-40 euros. I spoke about four- or five-year holidays. But there are countries that do not want to leave this system and it will be very complicated to push through any revision,” Fico explained.
The Prime Minister added that he would continue to develop activities in relation to the European Commission, submit a proposal to introduce holidays in terms of emission allowances and recalled that several prime ministers had reservations about the functioning of ETS 1, even the prime ministers of large states.
According to him, the leaders had serious reservations about the huge differences in electricity prices in Europe and that the single electricity market was not working. While countries like Spain and France have electricity prices at 50 or 60 euros per megawatt, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have over 100 euros and some countries are approaching the 200 euro mark. "The only specific thing that was said there is that when electricity prices are set, electricity is separated from gas, because the reference price of gas is important for setting electricity prices. It is called decoupling. I hope that the European Commission will propose something like this, although it will be complicated to implement in practice," he said.
Among other topics, he mentioned that the leaders talked about simplification and removing barriers.
Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta presented a new concept of the single market, which, according to Fico, contains various interesting things, but these are projects for several years that do not solve the current situation. "At least we all left the summit today with the idea that if we do not do something about electricity prices, we will turn the European Union into a cultural open-air museum visited by rich Chinese people," Fico said in conclusion, noting that the European Commission was under pressure and would have to come up with some solutions.
Source: TASR
