Member countries have not found a compromise on how to solve high electricity prices. This was stated by the Minister of Economy on Monday evening, after the meeting of the European Union (EU) Council for Energy Denisa Sakova (Hlas-SD), reports TASR reporter. Ministers of the EU member states also discussed in Brussels on Monday how to ensure a reduction in energy prices after the increase in oil and gas prices, which occurred after the airstrikes on Iran.
Sakova recalled that Europe is losing competitiveness due to high energy prices compared to the USA and China, and added that on Thursday (March 19) the heads of governments and states will also address this issue at the EU summit. “Today we expected that we would come to some kind of consensus, to a proposal that the energy ministers would present so that the leaders could decide on individual measures. We did not come to such a consensus,” said the minister. According to her, Western European countries promote the opinion that that each state adjusts energy and electricity prices by itself. This means adjusting the VAT and, in the case of the price of fuel, also the consumption tax.
“We are of the opinion that such measures are not enough. Central and Eastern European countries were leaning towards the need to reset the trading system for emission allowances, because allowances significantly affect electricity prices,” she said. She specified that there are clear disproportions between EU countries and that the European electricity market does not work completely fairly for everyone.
He claims that Slovakia has one of the cleanest energy mixes, that it has a built-in transmission system for the transmission of electricity from the north to the south and from the west to Ukraine, and that it produces more electricity than it consumes, so it can export it.
“We can say that we are one of the responsible EU countries. Even so, we have 10 percent higher electricity prices in the Central European region,” she described the situation. According to her, the same is claimed by her colleague from the Austrian department, which is why it is necessary to think about whether the electricity trading system is set up fairly. “Perhaps it is necessary to consider whether electricity prices must really continue to be linked to gas prices, which are rising disproportionately. Whether we cannot, for example, keep a part of domestic electricity production at production prices for our market, for households and for industry, or whether we will not have to touch the system of emission allowances.” she bequeathed.
Some member countries are considering state aid for industry suffering from high electricity prices. Saková emphasized that Slovakia is part of the single European energy market, so we can’t just mix and match everything within the country as the government would like. Every proposal for state aid according to the rules must be notified to the European Commission.
“We are preparing an aid scheme for energy-intensive businesses, it’s called CISAB, where we want to reimburse them for half of the electricity consumed, but only at the level of 50 euros per megawatt hour,” she said. She added, that Slovakia joins the call that the European Commission could in the future prepare a plan on how to use European funds, which have not yet been used up, to help with high energy prices.
