On Thursday 17 November, the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union shared with Member States a draft political agreement on the proposal for a Council regulation introducing emergency measures to reduce gas prices.
There are some changes from the previous version (see EUROPE 13063/13).
For instance, the Presidency deleted Articles 25 and 26 on the introduction of a mechanism for the allocation of gas capacity to supply Member States for which a regional or Union emergency has been declared.
It believes these articles “would need to be extensively redrafted and extended in order to give legal clarity about the measures”.
The draft compromise also includes changes regarding solidarity measures for a Member State that would not be able to cover the deficit in gas supply to its protected customers or the critical volume of gas needed to ensure security of electricity supply.
According to the text, the compensation to be given to the Member State providing solidarity should not only include the price of gas in that Member State and the costs of storage and transport, but also other indirect costs that are not covered by the price of gas.
While the previous draft compromise was to limit these indirect costs to 20% of the gas price, the new document raises the limit to 100%.
In the event that a Member State requests compensation for indirect costs exceeding 100% of the gas price, the Commission, at the request of the Member State providing solidarity measures, will decide whether higher compensation can be considered appropriate, the text goes on to say.
See the draft compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/458 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)