The multiple safeguard clauses of this new mechanism should in principle reassure gas suppliers, but will this price correction mechanism lower our energy bill?
The first clue comes once once more from the name given to this principle on which the Europeans finally agreed. “Price correction mechanism” means that they have moved from the idea of capping the price of gas (as requested by Belgium) to that of correcting market price deviations. Concretely, the goal today is above all to fight once morest market volatility, not to bring prices down permanently.
For Charles Cuvelliez, “The European market should now follow the global market trend and no longer behave erratically. A global market that obeys the law of supply and demand. But today, demand is always stronger, supply has more or less reached its limits. Clearly, cheap gas is over.
“The objective is not to structurally reduce prices, admitted the Federal Minister for Energy Tinne Van der Straeten, at the end of the Council meeting on Monday evening, but rather to function like the airbag of a car, to protect us in the event of an exceptional flight accident“. An instrument that therefore seeks to avoid the extraordinary peaks of summer 2022.
“There will be no impact for individuals and very little for manufacturers, adds Thierry Bros, professor at Sciences Po Paris. There is not necessarily a direct link between the wholesale price and the price at which you pay for electricity or gas.
