Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) will once again debate the legislative proposal to cap gas prices in certain circumstances on Saturday 10 December, 3 days after a previous meeting which showed that divisions remain.
According to information gathered by EUROPE, countries in favour of a cap (Spain, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Malta...) and those against the mechanism (Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Estonia...) continue to oppose each other, each camp forming a blocking minority, despite the efforts of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council.
Although the second draft compromise proposed by the Presidency relaxes the conditions for activating the cap (see EUROPE 13078/15), the Member States in favour of capping consider that they are still too restrictive and advocate a fixed entry into force date for the cap rather than conditional activation. They would also like the deactivation of the cap not to be automatic, but conditional on the adoption of an EU Council decision.
A third version of the compromise text will be submitted to the Member States ahead of Saturday’s Coreper meeting.
Prague hopes to reach an agreement (‘general approach’) on this issue at the next meeting of Member States’ energy ministers on Tuesday 13 December. If not, the issue will probably be on the agenda of the European Council on 15 December, a risky scenario.
“If you have it open for the European Council, you never know where this is going”, said a source close to the dossier.
The lack of agreement on this issue also prevents the adoption of two other pieces of legislation (on gas solidarity and on the acceleration of renewable energy projects - see EUROPE 13071/2). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)