Qatar's energy minister has called European proposals to cap natural gas prices "hypocritical".

Interventions in the markets counteract the competition rules that Europe has previously applied to producers, Saad Al Kaabi said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

He is also the head of the world's largest liquid gas producer, Qatar Energy.

"The free market is always the best solution," Al Kaabi said on Sunday.

Capping the price of natural gas also reduces incentives to invest in gas production and could prevent some customers from accessing supplies.

Competing importers could attract shipments that would otherwise go to Europe if they offered just a penny more, the minister said.

Should winters be severe and Russian pipeline supplies fail to return to normal levels, Al Kaabi expects Europe's troubles to last at least into 2025.

Faeser visiting Qatar

Attempts by European leaders this year to secure larger quantities of liquid gas from Qatar have been largely unsuccessful.

The emirate has been maxing out its installed capacity for the super-cooled fuel for years.

In order to stabilize energy costs, the European Commission intends to cap gas prices with the help of a dynamic price mechanism that could come into force as early as this winter.

In March, the European Commission concluded a nearly four-year antitrust investigation into LNG supply deals between Qatar and European companies.

Concerns that the deals were limiting EU gas importers' ability to sell LNG to alternative destinations within the single market were not substantiated.

On the second and last day of her visit to Qatar, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser has her first appointments with officials from the host country of the World Cup.

The SPD minister responsible for top-class sport wants to speak to the Qatari Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Chalid bin Chalifa Al-Thani and the Secretary General of the World Cup Organizing Committee, Hassan al-Thawadi, this Tuesday.

How these talks go will probably also depend on whether and who will travel to the World Cup for the federal government.

A meeting between Faeser and FIFA President Gianni Infantino is also planned.

Before the start of their visit, the Qatari government had complained because the German sports minister had criticized the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar.