The energy ministers of the European Union have agreed to maintain for another year the cap of 180 euros per megawatt-hour for the price of gas, joint gas purchases, with which the continent takes advantage of its power of collective bargaining to prevent the member states compete with each other and drive up the prices of this raw material, and speed up permitting for the renewable projects. The twenty-seven EU countries have approved the extension of these three measures at the proposal of the European Comission “to increase the security of gas supply and strengthen market resilience” despite the fact that “the market situation European energy is safer than it was twelve months ago.
“The extension of the three emergency measures is necessary to address a still fragile situation in the EU after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This will allow us to guarantee the stabilization of the energy markets, alleviate the effect of the crisis and protect citizens from the EU from excessive energy prices,” said the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Riberawho chaired this Tuesday the last energy meeting of the Twenty-seven with Spain at the head of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The call market correction mechanismwhich establishes that limit of 180 euros per megawatt-hour for the price of gas, intends to avoid “excessively high gas peaks” in the coming months. This system is activated when the price of gas exceeds this figure for three consecutive days and the difference with the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in international markets is at least 35 euros. That is, when prices in Europe skyrocket and do so well above prices in other markets, which is a symptom of an artificial increase in the price of raw materials.
In this way, by maintaining this limit, Europe establishes a kind of safeguard faced with a hypothesis that seems unlikely now, that of reaching 180 euros per megawatt-hour in the price of gas, given that the future prices of the reference European market, the Dutch TTFfor the coming months they are around 35 euros per megawatt-hour for this coming year. However, this safeguard could act, in turn, as alternative to the Iberian mechanismthe cap on the price of gas for electricity generation that they designed Spain and Portugal in the worst of the price crisis and which ends next December 31, if the Government or the European Commission decides not to maintain them beyond that date.
He iberian mechanism It currently stands at 65 euros per megawatt-hour (compared to the 40 euros per megawatt-hour that it had during its first reference year) and in recent months the vice president has acknowledged that her intention was to extend this measure for another year. , but in recent days sources from his department stated that he was still there is no decision made. “The protection signs for vulnerable consumers will remain (…). The rest of the measures must be seen which ones remainwhether they have to have some type of modification or not, and which are covered by European measures and, therefore, it is not necessary to maintain them,” Ribera said last week in a interview on RNE.
Related news
On the other hand, the European ministers also agreed this Tuesday to maintain the joint gas purchases“reliable reference prices and cross-border gas exchanges” from December 30, 2022 for a period of one year, until December 31, 2024, although in this case Article 10 on mandatory participation in demand aggregation.
In addition, the regulation is also extended to accelerate the permitting process for renewable projects, designed to reduce “dependency on the EU of Russian fossil fuels, which applies from the December 30, 2022 for a period of 18 months. “Ministers agreed to extend the period of application of certain amended provisions of the regulation until June 30, 2025. Unlike the other two emergency regulations, the amendments go beyond merely extending the period of application of the regulation,” adds the Council of the EU in a statement.