5/6/2023 0 Comments Www j line euAnd joint gas purchases are back on the agenda for next winter, according to draft EU summit conclusions due to be adopted on Friday. Now, Germany’s gas stores are more than 90% full. Instead, Berlin provided ample spare cash to Trading Hub Europe, the German gas market operator composed of gas traders, which went on a gas purchasing spree to fill up the country’s gas stores. “They are private sector companies that have supply contracts and in order to fulfil these supply contracts for energy they have to buy the basic supply,” one German government official said in March.ĭespite calls from smaller EU countries, little progress was made on joint purchases for months. With its liberalised market, Germany could not “order” companies to participate, senior officials argued. The German government, since then, kept holding to the same line: “we don’t have a state-owned company,” Habeck underline in June. Joint purchasing alone “will not increase the amount of gas available, which is the main challenge,” a senior German official told journalists in March. While senior German officials repeated their intention to act in a “cooperative” spirit with EU partners, they were also quick to highlight the need “to remain realistic.” Smaller member states, meanwhile, pushed for joint purchases as a frantic bidding war began, driving up prices on the gas market. However, Berlin insisted to keep common gas purchasing on a “voluntary” basis only, arguing the system was not suited to all EU countries. The idea was first floated by the European Commission on 8 March and taken up in the conclusions of an EU summit in March. On Friday (30 September), he said Europe must “use market power wisely” as part of a joint purchasing programme for gas.īerlin has not always been supportive of joint purchasing. Lindner’s comments support recent statement by Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck. ![]() Smaller EU countries have long called for an EU joint gas purchasing programme, a proposal since taken up by the European Commission in response to Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine. “We must make progress on joint gas purchasing,” said Finance Minister Christian Lindner on Tuesday in Luxembourg while meeting his EU counterparts. ![]() On 29 September, the German government announced a €200 billion economic “shield” designed to protect consumers and businesses from surging energy bills.īut the heavy spending plan has since been criticised by EU partners, who warned against the disparities it would create among EU countries, with some calling it “cannibalism” at the expense of EU solidarity.Īs an olive branch, the government affirmed its commitment to joint gas purchasing – which it previously tacitly rejected – ahead of an informal meeting of EU heads of state in Prague on Friday (7 October). The move follows heavy criticism of Germany’s €200 billion energy “shield”, which exposed the widening gap between rich and poor EU member states. Berlin has belatedly committed to an EU platform for joint gas buying ahead of an EU summit on Friday to address the energy crisis.
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