Suddenly it turned out to be possible: a price ceiling for gas and electricity that will relieve households. After the cabinet maintained for months that such a measure was impossible and undesirable, it presented a plan for a regulated basic package of energy on Tuesday.
Far too late, say opposition parties. But according to Minister Rob Jetten (D66, Climate), European rules until recently put a stop to the plan that has now been presented. “Only since this month has the European Commission offered the opportunity to apply such a generic price ceiling for all households,” said Jetten on Tuesday evening. news hour.
In conversation with NRC he also pointed to European obstacles on Tuesday. “The scope that we now have to introduce a price ceiling for all households for a certain use was not there before.” During the General Considerations, coalition parties D66 and ChristenUnie also emphasized on Wednesday that the measure was made possible by a recent approval from the Commission.
Exceptional circumstances
Has Brussels indeed only recently approved a price ceiling? What is certain is that other countries in any case did not let that stop them. In recent months, many EU Member States have already taken far-reaching measures to reduce the energy costs of citizens – sometimes with great similarities to the Dutch plan. For example, in Romania, where the government introduced a price cap as early as March for a limited package of electricity and gas. Or Austria, which also last month introduced a fixed rate for a particular basic power supply. In other EU Member States, even more expensive and broader support programs were sometimes rolled out, for example in France.
None of those EU countries encountered opposition from the EU. In Brussels, EU officials, when requested, point on a document already published in Marchin which the Commission underlines that ‘Member States have the option’ [hebben] to set retail prices for households and micro-enterprises in the current exceptional circumstances.”
Vulnerable households
However, last week, together with a trio of other far-reaching proposals for intervention in the energy market, added one more recommendation. In it, the Commission proposes to extend the existing rules somewhat by ‘allowing regulated prices below cost’.
Jetten now seems to be relying on the latter formulation in his defence. But sources in Brussels confirm that the space had been there for much longer in practice. In response to the energy crisis, the Commission has been urging Member States for a year to take extensive compensatory measures themselves, in particular for ‘vulnerable households’. The definition of this is extremely flexible, which is also apparent from the fact that Brussels has not yet reprimanded a Member State about aid that is too generous or that distorts the market.
And that support is indeed broad. From an overview The Brussels think tank Bruegel revealed this week that EU countries, Norway and the United Kingdom have already spent a total of 500 billion euros since September last year to protect households and companies against price increases.
Taboos fall
According to that analysis, the Netherlands has been in the rear until this week, with a support package worth 0.7 percent of its own GDP – compared to, for example, 2.9 and 2.2 percent in Spain and France, respectively. With the newly announced price cap, the Dutch position is rising rapidly and the support amounts to 2.8 percent of GDP, comparable to that in Germany.
The defense of Jetten also raises eyebrows in Brussels because it is precisely the Netherlands that opposes too radical market interventions in European consultations. For example, against the permanent decoupling of the gas and electricity prices or against another form of a price ceiling: at European level when purchasing gas on the global market. The Netherlands is still not in favor of either measure. But now that old taboos are quickly being broken at EU level, the last word in that discussion has not yet been said.