It has taken too long for the European Union to recognize the reality of the facts:the rise in energy prices is unsustainable ” class=”link copy”>the rise in energy prices is unsustainable for individuals and companies and not intervene has the very high cost of burdening the economic recovery by multiplying inflation. It was necessary for the Ukrainian war to break out for the Commission to approach the repeated arguments of partners such as France and Spain to open the door to substantial changes, some temporary, some permanent, to decouple the price of gas from the ‘electricity and thus avoid what some experts call’ opportunistic increase ‘.
The possibility of states subsidizing part of the cost of the service is unrealistic the road to tax cuts is almost exhausted, put into practice in Spain and other countries, there is the possibility of various formulas to soften the crazy escalation of prices. The first, so far rejected by Brussels, is to establish a tariff system that takes into account the real costs of how electricity is generated: it is absurd that the price of electricity production by other means – nuclear, hydroelectric , wind and renewable energy in general– be dragged upward by the price of gas. The other, more complex but inescapable, is diversify supply not to depend on Russian gas, which even under normal conditions has a speculative behavior with an index of stored reserves below 20% of its real capacity. In the medium term, there are still more cards to play, especially increasing coordination in gas purchases between EU partners and the acceleration of the change in the energy model.
What has been confirmed with the tragedy in Ukraine is that Russia’s over-reliance in the short term condemns the EU to patch up the situation by resorting to liquefied gas, the importation and regasification of which is inevitably more expensive than the purchase through pipelines, and in the not too long term, forces the entire supply network to be interconnected. The German decision to entrust its gas needs to the contract with Gazprom, as if Russia were a reliable partner in political terms, it was a capital error which must now be corrected as soon as possible. The amount of investment made by Russia in gas pipelines has not prevented Vladimir Putin from triggering an international crisis, and there is no sign that the crisis will subside immediately, but rather the opposite.
It is urgent to rectify and explore all avenues to improve the situation. Because what is certain is that whatever solution the EU finally adopts, it is necessary to intervene in market mechanisms. Part of the increase in supply is inevitable, as a result of the search for alternative suppliers, which are further away than the Russian sites and which require more complex and expensive logistics. Another part can be alleviated modifying the pricing system yes or no, to alleviate the cost of the ongoing crisis in the energy sector that rests on the shoulders of consumers and corporate profit and loss accounts. The companies responsible for the supply will have to assume that when exploring the EU “All possible options”, in the words of Commissioner Kadri Simson, including the setting of time limits on electricity prices, they may end up sharing the costs of the current situation with private or industrial consumers. No one comes out unscathed from a war.