EU members are struggling to find common ground over a proposed cap on Russian natural gas prices.“The discussion is extremely complicated because there are simply different views . . . [but] we want to work hard in the remaining days to reach an agreement,” said Jozef Sikela, Czechia’s energy minister.
“The discussion is extremely complicated because there are simply different views . . . [but] we want to work hard in the remaining days to reach an agreement,” said Jozef Sikela, Czechia’s energy minister, last week, asEU members have been negotiating the crisis management package for months now, with agreement on the gas price cap no closer in sight than it was at the start of negotiations when 15 EU members asked for it.
Yet traders and exchange operators were not the only critics. Politicians from several EU members also declared their opposition to the cap as too high. Indeed, observers note that even when gas prices in Europe were at their highest this year, at over 300 euros per MWh, they never stayed at 275 euros per MWh for two whole weeks. The level that the Commission proposes, then, is considered unrealistically high to make the cap effective.