Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer called on the European Union this Sunday to “decouple the price of electricity from that of gas” in order to lower it, and affirms that this issue is on the table for an upcoming emergency meeting.
Records because of the war
All of Europe is being hit by rising energy prices and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose country holds the EU presidency, announced on Friday that his country would convene an emergency meeting of energy ministers.
“Theme [du découplage] it will be on the agenda”, assured the Chancellor, who says he had mentioned it upstream with his German counterpart Olaf Scholz and with Petr Fiala. After six months of war in Ukraine, energy prices in Europe have had a crazy week with new records on Friday, heralding an explosion in the cost of living next winter.
Several causes are at the origin of this explosion, starting with the drying up of Russian gas to European countries that support Ukraine. However, 20% of Europe’s electricity is generated by gas-fired power plants.
The crisis takes all of Europe by surprise, which had post-Covid recovery plans to start an energy transition, in order to get out of fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases, developing renewables or hydrogen.
Source: BFM TV
