The European Commission said on Tuesday 10 May that it was still awaiting formal notification from the Spanish and Portuguese authorities on the measures they wish to take to temporarily cap gas price formation based on wholesale electricity prices (see EUROPE 12939/12).
The Commission has already made a “provisional assessment” of the draft temporary measures that these authorities want to adopt “very quickly” to respond temporarily to exceptional price increases in the Iberian wholesale electricity market due to the impact of rising hydrocarbon prices, said one of its spokespersons, Arianna Podesta. She said that the EU institution was awaiting further information under the formal notification procedure with a view to reaching a satisfactory solution “as soon as possible”.
Ms Podesta stressed the importance of maintaining cross-border flows of energy supplies as a key condition for the proper functioning of the internal market.
On the Spanish side, it is reported that the Commission had given an informal green light to the Iberian proposal. An extraordinary meeting of Pedro Sánchez’s government is expected to take place this Friday to finalise the Spanish measures.
At the end of March, Spain and Portugal had obtained recognition of an Iberian exception - high levels of renewable energy and low levels of interconnection - in the field of energy at the Spring European Council (see EUROPE 12919/1). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion, with Damien Genicot)