The Federal Chancellor has built a security clause into the summit resolutions, which means that he cannot be overruled.
(Photo: AP)
Since Friday night there has been a “timetable” for a Europe-wide gas price cap. Many heads of government are relieved that the EU will finally help them ease the burden on their citizens. But the EU will hardly be able to keep this promise. This measure appears in the decisions of the EU summit. The EU Commission and the energy ministers should now deal with the details.
But Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been assured that every decision must be made unanimously. The energy ministers cannot overrule Germany, the most important opponent of a gas price cap, Scholz explained shortly after three o’clock with a mischievous grin.
On the one hand, this is good news: Germany rightly fears that a gas price cap will increase consumption, allow subsidized energy to flow abroad and become very expensive if market prices are high.
Specifically, it is about subsidizing the gas that is used to produce electricity and thus reducing electricity prices. This is being done in Spain and Portugal – and all the feared effects can already be observed there.
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Germany therefore wants to prevent the “Iberian gas price cap”. The Chancellor sees it as a success that this topic has now been shifted to other working levels for an indefinite period of time.
>> Read here: EU wants to work on gas price cap – Scholz: “We got together”
But in other countries, people are urgently waiting for a clear announcement from the EU. Belgium, for example, wants to introduce a gas price brake, but is waiting to do so as long as it is unclear what will happen at EU level. Promising relief, but then not delivering it – that is a bad recipe for frustration in the European population.
A gas price cap, but only maybe – The most important decisions of the EU summit
And it is also a bad recipe against frustration with Germany. We can still hear from other countries that Berlin is currently poorly coordinated and is not acting very considerately. The last irritation comes from the fact that Germany blocked joint gas purchases for months, but then changed tack exactly at the moment when its own gas storage facilities were full. The motto is “Germany first”, is mocked. That is the last impression the federal government should make in Brussels.
In Berlin, it must not be forgotten that Germany is dependent on its European neighbors. This is even clearer in this crisis than it was before: German apartments simply cannot be heated if the Netherlands, Belgium and France do not supply gas via their LNG terminals.
More: Record profits – Norway benefits from soaring gas prices