The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Friday that she will present an emergency plan in July to coordinate the way in which the gas supply is managed in the different European countries, following Russia’s decision to reduce the flow of gas supply to the community market.
“We are working on a common European plan to reduce demand with the industry but also with the twenty-seven Member States”, announced the President of the Community Executive, at a press conference after the Summit of EU leaders, making a comparison with the joint response that the countries proposed to Covid.
The President of the Community Executive has added that she will present this plan to the capitals in July and has urged the Member States to be prepared to face possible gas supply cuts to Europe.
“We have reviewed all the national emergency plans to make sure that they are all ready for possible additional cuts,” added Von der Leyen, who has urged helping families and society adapt to these “new conditions” in the face of possible power cuts. Kremlin energy supply.
As part of the EU’s energy supply diversification strategy to cut Russia’s dependence on fossil fuels by 2030, the President of the Community Executive has recalled the agreement reached with the US to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas 68% in 2022, or the recent understanding agreement with Egypt and Israel to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas by an additional 2,000 million cubic meters this year.
“We have seen the pattern of the last weeks and months, but also of the last year,” Von der Leyen stressed about the reduction of gas supplies from the Russian state gas company, Gazprom, to the EU.
“The Norwegian gas pipeline is at 50%, the Azerbajan gas pipeline is at more than 90%,” said Von der Leyen, who recalled that 12 member states have suffered total or partial supply cuts by Moscow, such as that of Gazprom to Germany via the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
The President of the European Commission has highlighted the importance of interconnection networks and gas pipelines in the European Union so that the flow can run in any direction where gas or electricity is needed.
“We have seen the pattern of the last weeks and months, but also of the last year,” Von der Leyen stressed about Gazprom’s gas supply reduction to the EU.
In this regard, the Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander de Croo, has indicated that “we are already in a situation in which the markets are disturbed, what we are going to do in the EU is to coordinate better this summer to prevent next winter from having supply problems”, he pointed out regarding the better coordination plan that the Community Executive will prepare.
In a further step, the President of the Community Executive has expressed her intention to present her proposal to reform the community electricity market to the next Summit of EU leaders in October, a proposal that she hopes to have ready by the end of the summer and that she has proposed that includes “the decoupling of gas from the formation of market prices”.
In line with what was announced a few weeks ago before the plenary session of the European Parliament, Von der Leyen explained that the design of the electricity market currently has different technologies, many renewable, but the last one to enter is gas, and “gas defines the price» of the wholesale electricity market.
Thus, he has indicated that prices are high although the production of electricity from renewable sources “is profitable.” Thus, he has argued that the design responds to the energy mix of the market 20 years ago, which had a large share of fossil fuels.
