Sanchez hopes EU finds ‘balanced’ response to soaring energy prices
Paris, Mar 21 (EFE).- Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said Monday that he hopes the European Commission will provide a balanced response to the side effects of the war in Ukraine, which has dented the continent’s energy supply and triggered rising fuel and electricity prices.
“We hope to be able to find a balanced response that allows all countries to be able to respond depending on how serious the situation is in one or another aspect to this challenge,” he said alongside French president Emmanuel Macron in a joint press briefing at the Elysee Palace.
Sanchez said that the European Council on Thursday and Friday in Brussels would address “guaranteeing (the) energy supply” and “the evolution of the price of gas and its transfer to the price of electricity.”
Macron thanked Sanchez for his “personal commitment” and his work in coordination with other countries to “find European solutions that will allow us to protect ourselves from the consequences of the war.”
The French head of state said it was a matter of “converging effective solutions that limit the price of gas and the impact on the price of electricity,” as well as looking for common, European mechanisms of gas storage and of diversifying energy sources.
France and Spain, like other EU countries, especially southern member states, want a reform of the European electricity market, which in practice makes electricity prices dependent on gas prices that have soared in the last year amid the heightened tensions with Russia.
Northern bloc members, as well as the European Commission, have been reluctant to discuss such a reform, which would require unanimity.
EU leaders are expected to prepare proposals for the summit convened in Brussels later this week. EFE
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