The European Commission will present long-awaited proposals on Tuesday to mitigate soaring energy prices that are hitting EU households and businesses hard, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson announced on Wednesday.

Taking up points already mentioned by the President of the European Executive Ursula von der Leyen and which are consensus among the 27 Member States, these proposals will include a revision of the TTF index, used as a reference in the transactions of gas operators, detailed Simson after a meeting in Prague of European energy ministers.

This index "is no longer representative of the reality of the market and artificially inflates prices, we must develop an alternative benchmark," she said during a press conference.

Facilitate “joint purchases”

Measures will also be unveiled to "facilitate joint purchases of gas, in order to allow the EU to use its weight to obtain better prices" with a view to rebuilding stocks before winter 2023. These are to prevent Member States from fueling soaring prices by competing with each other.

Finally, Brussels will present additional tools to reduce gas consumption and strengthen solidarity between States for the benefit of the most vulnerable regions.

On the other hand, Kadri Simson did not promise proposals on a cap on the price of gas imports from the EU, or on a temporary cap on the wholesale prices of gas used to produce electricity, two measures nevertheless mentioned by Von der Leyen in a letter to the 27 last week.

Proposals adopted in November

"Our proposals will be the measures for which we have the maximum consensus among the States", she commented, stressing that discussions would continue in the coming days to try to find a majority in favor of a cap on the price of gas for electricity generation.

This mechanism, already applied in Spain and Portugal and supported by France, still arouses the hostility of countries reluctant to state intervention in the markets, including Germany.

The Commission's proposals will be examined at a summit of heads of state and government on October 20 and 21 in Brussels, before being discussed at a new meeting of energy ministers on October 25 in Luxembourg. , before their possible adoption at an extraordinary ministerial meeting in November.

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