Eduardo González
Chief Executive Pedro Sánchez yesterday won the support of France and Belgium for his quest for a European “balanced response” to the “energy challenge” but was again ignored by U.S. President Joe Biden in a joint telephone interview with top European leaders to address the war in Ukraine.
Sánchez traveled yesterday to France and Belgium as part of his tour of several European countries to address the energy price problem before the next European Council, to be held in Brussels on March 24 and 25. Last week, the head of the Executive met with the leaders of Croatia, Romania, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Germany, and today he is scheduled to meet with the Prime Minister of Ireland.
In Paris, the President of the Government was received by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, with whom he offered a joint statement to the media in which he thanked “the diplomatic efforts that President Macron has been making even before the invasion so that this absolutely extemporaneous military aggression by Putin towards Ukraine would not take place”. “That President Macron has led, together with (German) Chancellor (Olaf) Scholz, these talks with Vladimir Putin if it proves anything is precisely that there has not been a lack of diplomacy on the part of Europe, but what has been left over has been aggression on the part of Russia towards an independent country,” he continued.
According to Sánchez, “energy and peace have been two of the fundamental pillars that have justified the construction of this European project” and, therefore, the next European Council must address “two fundamental aspects: guaranteeing the energy supply and the evolution of the price of gas and its transfer to the price of electricity”.
“We are talking about two elements in which we hope that the European Commission can find a balanced response that allows us all countries to respond to this formidable challenge that the war in Ukraine is posing to us from the energy point of view,” he continued. Therefore, he warned, it is necessary “to act now so that no one can subject Europe to energy price blackmail.” “We must act now, and do so within a common European framework,” he said.
For his part, Macron said that “Spain is very committed to finding European solutions that allow us to protect ourselves from the consequences of the war”, for which he thanked Sánchez “for his personal commitment, his work and coordination with Italy, Greece, Portugal and other European countries, such as Germany, to try to find convergent and effective solutions to avoid the increase in gas prices, avoid its impact on the price of electricity, have common rationing solutions in Europe and diversify our sources of supply”. “In any case, it is about preparing the protection of households and businesses in the short term and our ability to resist in the short term and preserve our energy security for next winter; that is key”, he warned.
Afterwards, the President of the Government travelled to Belgium, where he held a meeting with the Prime Minister of this country, Alexander De Croo. In statements to the media just before the meeting, Sanchez warned of the “need to articulate common responses to a common problem, which is the runaway price of energy that is affecting the welfare of our citizens and the economic viability of many industries”. “In that sense, there are two important aspects,” he continued. “The first has to do with supply, diversity in supply, the ability to have sources of gas from different countries, and secondly there is everything that has to do with prices,” because “the prices right now in the market are not reflecting reality,” he explained.
“We have, therefore, to take measures at the European level both from the point of view of supply and from the point of view of price formation to protect our citizens and to protect our industry as well,” added Sánchez. For his part, the Belgian Prime Minister declared that “energy prices in Europe do not reflect reality” because “the markets have become completely irrational”, and therefore stated that the EU should “intervene” because the markets “are not working” and even defended the possibility of “putting a ceiling on prices”.
Subsequently, Pedro Sánchez held meetings with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and with the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen. The debate on the energy issue began to be addressed in September, but has taken on a new dimension with the invasion of Ukraine and the EU’s attempts to reduce and even eliminate energy dependence on Russia. The proposal that Spain has presented to the other EU member states advocates the decoupling of gas and electricity prices, joint European purchases, diversification of supply and the promotion of renewable energies.
Joe Biden
Meanwhile, Joe Biden held a new telephone conversation yesterday with several European leaders to “discuss their coordinated responses to Russia’s unwarranted and unprovoked attack on Ukraine,” according to the White House. The call to five included, in addition to the American leader, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Therefore, he did not include Pedro Sánchez, just as he was not included in the various periodic contacts that Biden has maintained since the invasion of Ukraine began. In these talks, the US president has normally included Macron, Scholz, Draghi and Johnson, as well as Ursula Von der Leyen and Charles Michel. The US president will participate this Thursday in Brussels in an extraordinary summit of NATO leaders and in the European Council, which will allow him to coincide again with European leaders, including Sánchez.
