The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, demanded yesterday before the leaders of the southern EU that a European debate be opened on the regulatory framework of the electricity markets and on strategic autonomy in energy matters.
Sánchez participated yesterday in Athens in the Summit of the Southern Countries of the European Union, EUMED-9, which was also attended by the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis; Slovenian, Janez Jansa; Maltese, Robert Abela; Croatian, Andrej Plenković; Italian, Mario Draghi; and Portuguese, Antonio Costa, and the presidents of France, Emmanuel Macron, and Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades.
During the meeting, as explained by the chief executive at the press conference afterwards, Sanchez called for the problem of electricity prices to be addressed at the European level in order to adopt more effective measures. “At EUMED-9 we have addressed the issue of the price of light,” he declared. “It is a European problem and we have to look for common solutions,” so he urged the other participants to “start opening a debate at European level on the regulatory framework we have for electricity markets and also to start thinking about a strategic autonomy of energy, and why not think about it also for natural gas,” he added.
Spanish sources quoted by the Europa Pess agency reported that this issue was discussed during the first part of this meeting, dedicated to climate change and its impact on the Mediterranean, in which both Mitsotakis and Draghi addressed the problems caused by the increase in electricity prices and the need to address this situation. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also took part in the Athens summit.
On the other hand, Pedro Sánchez also referred to the “catastrophes” caused this summer by forest fires and proposed the creation of a European military unit to deal with these natural disasters, for which he gave as an example the Military Emergency Unit (UME), created in 2008 and which could be “an embryo of military response to these natural disasters”. “Fire has ravaged many European regions this summer,” he told the press conference. “Today in Athens, climate change and its impact on the Mediterranean countries was a key topic,” he continued. “Let us work for a Europe that reacts united in the face of these unfortunately increasingly common events”, he assured.
Before the Summit, Pedro Sánchez held a bilateral meeting with Von der Leyen, with whom he discussed climate change and the future of the EU after the COVID-19 pandemic. “Productive meeting with Von der Leyen at the start of the EUMED-9 summit,” he stated on his Twitter account. “The commitment to a greener and more sustainable Europe as well as the situation of the EU after the pandemic have been some of the topics discussed,” he said. “We have discussed strategies to combat climate change and the European Green Pact,” said the EU president through the same social network.
