Five MEPs from pro-European groups, including Danuta Hübner (EPP, Polish), Domènec Ruiz Devesa (S&D, Spanish), Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgian), Damian Boeselager (Greens/EFA, German) and Helmut Scholz (The Left, German), are calling for a European Energy Security Fund (EESF) to be set up funded by new EU debt to help EU citizens and businesses cope with soaring energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in a letter to the European Commission on Tuesday 11 October.
They argue that the current energy crisis requires the same approach as the one pursued to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, namely a European solution that allows: - joint procurement; - investments in renewable energy via the EESF; and - the creation of a European Energy Assistance Plan (EEAP) providing grants and loans to the Member States. In their view, such a European initiative is justified to preserve the internal market and because the Member States do not have the same room for manoeuvre to support their economies.
Supporting the recent call by European Commissioners Thierry Breton and Paolo Gentiloni (see EUROPE 13035/31), the five MEPs believe that the EESF and the EEAP should be financed by a European debt, which in turn should be partly secured by a levy on the taxation of the super-profits currently made by energy companies. Such a mechanism would avoid the need for public guarantees, they argue.
In the wake of this, the members of the Movimento 5 Stelle in the European Parliament joined their counterparts on Wednesday. They call on the European Parliament to take up this initiative which revives the spirit of European solidarity that prevailed during the pandemic.
Read the letter written by the five MEPs: https://aeur.eu/f/3kw (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)