Most ministers silently disappeared into the Brussels Council building on Tuesday.

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck apparently had no need to comment as usual before the laborious debate on the EU gas price cap.

However, his Greek counterpart Konstantinos Skrekas chose clear words: The EU had been debating for too long and now has to deliver, i.e. decide on the gas price cap.

Henrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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Two camps have faced each other in recent weeks.

Supported by Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Hungary, Germany had spoken out against a price cap.

Berlin fears that a price cap will jeopardize supply, as deliveries will then flow to other countries.

The European Commission had argued similarly for a long time.

On the other hand, the majority of countries, led by the most vocal Greece, Italy, Belgium and Poland, have been pushing for a strict price cap on imports for months in order to lower costs for industry and households.

They had linked their adoption of two other EU laws - to pool gas purchases and speed up approval processes for wind and solar power - to this.

France, on the other hand, has largely taken a wait-and-see attitude in the dispute.

Several one-on-one meetings

At the EU summit in October, Chancellor Olaf Scholz finally agreed to the creation of a correction mechanism for the price.

According to the German interpretation, this should only be used to prevent extreme price fluctuations.

At the same time, Berlin urged that security of supply not be jeopardized and that a price cap, however designed, should not lead to an increase in gas consumption.

Before the special meeting of energy ministers, the Czech Council Presidency identified Germany as the main obstacle to an agreement.

Council President Jozef Síkela met Habeck several times for individual talks.

In the last compromise proposal for the meeting, Síkela proposed a dynamic price cap that should be 35 euros above the world market price for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

It should be triggered when the price of the Amsterdam leading index TTF rises to 200 to 220 euros per megawatt hour for three to five days and is 35 euros above the LNG world market price.

The parameters were thus lower than in the Commission's proposal from November.

It provided for a fixed cap of 275 euros, which should only apply if the gas price is two weeks higher.

This was met with some fierce criticism from the supporters of the price cap, as it would not even have been activated this summer, when the gas price rose to up to 350 euros for a few days.

It is now less than 150 euros.

At the same time, however, the proposals of the Council Presidency exceeded the demands of the supporters of the cap and should continue to apply only to part of the gas trade.