The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, closed ranks yesterday with his counterparts from Italy, Mario Draghi; Portugal, António Costa; and Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in the defense of “urgent European responses” to the high price of electricity.
Sánchez arrived yesterday in Rome 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. Spain defends the decoupling of gas and electricity prices, the realization of joint European purchases, the diversification of supply and the promotion of renewable energies. The debate on this 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.
“Today, the governments of Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal are telling the rest of our European colleagues that we are working together in view of the discussion at the next European Council in Brussels next week, on concrete, feasible and executable proposals, which will have immediate effects of reducing electricity prices,” Sánchez said during the joint press conference (in which Mitsotakis participated virtually because of COVID-19). The goal of the four countries, he noted, is to seek proposals that “protect our families and businesses.”
“We must act now and give European answers to European problems,” added Sánchez, who insisted not only on the Spanish proposal to decouple gas from the rest of the energy prices, but also on the need for Brussels to promote the interconnection of the Iberian Peninsula with France so that “there will be a supply of natural gas and renewable gases in the future” that will allow the disconnection of Russia in the medium term.
“The four countries that are meeting today offer the rest of the EU all our efforts to achieve, as soon as possible, the diversification of energy sources. We are aware of the role that southern Europe plays in this challenge and we are going to make every effort necessary”, said the President of the Government, who recalled that Spain has 27% of the regasification capacity and 30% of the storage capacity of liquefied natural gas in the European Union.
“If we do that, we will be reinforcing European strategic autonomy” and it will be possible to eliminate “the dependence of central and northern Europe on Russian gas” and, therefore, “Putin’s energy blackmail”, he said. “We are late and we should have done it earlier,” he continued. “Spain already proposed this solution last September and, unfortunately, we have seen that the crisis was neither temporary, nor circumstantial, nor innocent,” he recalled.
For his part, Mario Draghi told the press conference that “common management of the energy market would be beneficial for all” and assured that the countries of southern Europe will try to convince the frugal countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria) of the need to adopt measures, even if temporary, so that high gas prices do not have an impact on energy bills.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis also warned that “when particular situations like this arise, where markets fall into the hands of speculation, action must be taken.” “The four countries agree that individual responses cannot be given” because “national initiatives are not enough”, he added. Finally, António Costa expressed his hope that European leaders will adopt during next week’s meeting “concrete decisions that will translate into responses to the needs of families and businesses.” “We must prevent electricity prices from being influenced by gas prices,” he insisted.
Scholz
After his stay in Rome, Pedro Sánchez went to Germany, one of the countries most opposed to the reform of the European electricity market and whose support is essential for the European Council to approve the Spanish proposal. In the opinion of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with whom the President of the Government held a working dinner last night in Berlin, Pedro Sánchez’s plan “would break the energy market”.
For that reason, in a press conference prior to the working dinner, Sánchez declared that “for Spain it is essential that the European Council adopts concrete, urgent and immediate measures”. “We want to work on the basis of a basic principle, which is unity. Europe is united in the face of Putin and we must unite in the responses to the economic and social consequences,” he continued. “We must gain energy autonomy and protect economic recovery,” he continued. “We must tackle the problems generated by the rising energy problems caused by Vladimir Putin. We must provide an effective and urgent response. Spain is working on a common response, and not on 27 different responses,” he added.
For his part, the German Chancellor did not want to mention the Spanish proposals or his position on the matter and limited himself to admitting that both leaders had “quite a lot of work ahead of them” in this matter. He also stated that the European Council will discuss proposals so that the EU can deal with the “difficulties” posed by high energy prices for citizens and companies and so that “we, as the European Union, become more independent more quickly in energy matters”. “We must decide how to make the Union more sovereign and resilient. Specifically, we will talk about defense and energy policies and about improving cooperation, in close collaboration with the US and NATO,” he added.
During the working dinner, Mr. Sánchez presented Chancellor Scholz with proposals prepared by the Spanish Government and both leaders agreed on the need to diversify the energy supply in Europe as soon as possible in order to get out of Russian dependence. Likewise, Pedro Sánchez and Olaf Scholz agreed on the need to find solutions to guarantee supply and to continue working intensively in the coming days to find solutions that can be approved at next week’s European Council in Brussels.
