Oil price cap and new sanctions against Russia: EU agrees

Ursula von der Leyen – Photo by Ansa Foto

Capping the price of oil and new sanctions against Russia: there is the agreement of the 27, reached during Coreper, the meeting of representatives of the member countries.

This is the eighth package of measures aimed at stopping Putin in the war against Ukraine by hitting him economically. The formalization of the approval will be done by written procedure.

Von der Leyen: “Inflation must be limited”

“High gas prices drive up electricity prices. We must limit this inflationary impact of gas on electricity everywhere in Europe. For this reason, we are prepared to discuss a cap on the price of gas used to generate electricity”. These are the words of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at the plenary session of the European Parliament today, Wednesday 5 October.

“The price cap is a temporary solution”

“We also need to consider gas prices beyond the electricity market. Such a gas price cap must be properly designed to ensure security of supply. And it is a temporary solution to deal with the fact that the TTF, our main benchmark for prices, is no longer representative of our market, which now includes more LNG,” von der Leyen continued.

“We have reduced our gas consumption by around 10%. We need to do more, but this is an important fact. Gas supplies have decreased to 7.5% of line gas,” he continued.

Von der Leyen: “Strengthening RePowerEU”

And he concluded: “So I think we should further strengthen RePowerEU with additional funding, joint funding. In this way, all states can accelerate the necessary investments”.

Ecofin: ok to adopt RePowerEU

Meanwhile, at the Ecofin meeting, the summit of economy and finance ministers of EU member states gave the green light to adopt the plan drawn up by the European Council on RePowerEU. The national NRPs will be modified, adding a chapter on energy and asking to use Next Generation Eu loans for energy investments.

Basically, the project aims to add a new chapter of the RePowerEU to the RNRs of the different member countries, as part of the next generation, to finance investments and reforms in order to achieve the objectives of the European energy plan.