EThere have been longer discussions at EU summits than the four-hour long debate on high energy prices. However, the debate is likely to have only been the prelude to a dispute that could drag on for a long time – at least until prices fall noticeably again. Diplomats reported a “focused” exchange on Thursday evening. It was just as much a question of the reasons for the price increase and the reaction to the immediate consequences as it was of the proposals made by France and Spain to reform the electricity market and joint gas purchases, the EU’s climate targets and nuclear power. There was virtually no consensus on any point.
Even before the beginning of the meeting, it had been shown that there are ultimately three camps in the energy price debate: The first group around Germany and the European Commission sees the crisis as an exceptional situation, which is due in particular to the recovery of the global economy after the Corona crisis. She sees no urgent need for action beyond short-term help for households and companies. The second, somewhat smaller group around Spain and France is calling for fundamental reforms such as the decoupling of electricity and gas prices. The third group, including Poland and Hungary, questions the EU’s climate targets because they believe they would drive prices up further. And then there are the countries that see a tailwind for the continued use of nuclear power, which in turn is strictly rejected by Austria or Germany.
Orbán speaks of “utopian fantasies”
All of these issues threaten to mix up more and more. Before the meeting began, Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a distinction between the energy price crisis and the challenges “we are facing in the climate fight”. The EU Commission’s “Fit for 55” climate package has nothing to do with high energy prices. “I think we should react prudently,” stressed the Chancellor at what will probably be her last EU summit. But that is exactly what the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán see very differently.
Morawiecki called for the discussion on energy prices to be continued at the December summit with a special focus on what the high prices mean for the Commission’s “Fit for 55” climate package and the planned expansion of emissions trading to include buildings and transport. The Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš tried late in the evening to ensure that a review of emissions trading was included in the conclusions. It is particularly about the accusation made by other EU leaders from Eastern Europe that the price is being driven up by speculators.
Orbán called on the Commission to completely reconsider its climate protection proposals. Some of these are “utopian fantasies”. The responsible Vice President of the EU Commission, Frans Timmermans, is a fantastic. Orbán warned that prices would go through the roof and “kill” the middle class if the EU implemented its proposals to extend emissions trading to buildings and transport. The Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg admitted that energy should not become a luxury good. However, it is the wrong approach to question climate protection because of high gas and fuel prices.
The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in turn, insisted that the EU quickly – ideally next week at the special meeting of energy ministers in Luxembourg that has already been convened – takes steps to lower energy prices. He also spoke out in favor of putting the issue back on the summit agenda in December. The high energy prices are not a Spanish problem, but a pan-European problem, said Sánchez. The short-term aid for socially disadvantaged households and companies proposed by the EU Commission in its “toolbox” last week was not enough. Merkel had clearly rejected the electricity market reform called for by Sánchez. She thinks “that we shouldn’t switch off the market completely, but rather create more market”.
What was also controversial was the share of Russia in the rise in gas prices. Morawiecki accused Russia of deliberately supplying too little gas to Europe. At the same time he attacked the German government, because with Nord Stream 2 it gave Russia a lever to blackmail the EU.
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