*** modified Friday 24 March, 11 am ***
Security of supply for the coming winter is high on the agenda of many Member States, who are already calling for the start of a campaign to fill gas stocks.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas expressed such a need on her arrival at the European Council on Thursday 23 March. “We need to focus on next year. The first question is: who are our partners who supply us with oil and gas? And the second is: how can we consume less? We have seen positive results in this respect”, she added.
The AggregateEU group purchasing mechanism, via the EU energy platform, and the extension of the emergency measures adopted during the energy crisis are also key elements of the discussion.
In a context of strengthening the competitiveness of European industry (see other news) and energy sovereignty, the concerns of many Member States also relate to the development and mass production of clean energy and hydrogen.
“Wind generation in the Baltic Sea has a large capacity. There is still a lot of untapped capacity. But it also means that we will have to develop hydrogen technologies, because we will have to store green energy, when the wind is blowing but there is no demand, in order to balance the system”, Latvian Prime Minister Krišjanis Kariņš said upon his arrival at the Summit.
In its conclusions, the European Council asks the EU legislator to reform the price-setting mechanisms in the electricity market by the end of 2023 (see EUROPE 13141/1).
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, recalled the importance of this reform. “It is a reform that I consider fundamental, firstly to gain energy autonomy, and secondly to protect households and European economies. And to gain resilience to possible energy blackmail from third countries such as, in our case, Russia”, he stressed.
EU leaders also call for the completion of legislative proposals to accelerate the energy transition, such as the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive.
Austria has reiterated its opposition to nuclear energy. “The risks far outweigh the benefits”, said the Austrian Chancellor, Karl Nehammer. He added: “but we also know that this view is not unanimous, quite the contrary. France is of course one of the biggest lobbyists for nuclear energy”. “But the positive aspect”, according to Mr Nehammer, “is that France has also recognised that renewable energy and the combustion engine can indeed be a technology of the future”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys with Lionel Changeur, Anne Damiani, Léa Marchal and Mathieu Bion)