BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission proposed introducing a gas price cap for one year from Jan.1, 2023, according to a draft legislation seen by Reuters that, however, has so far left the actual ceiling level blank.
The idea to cap prices has divided EU countries for many months. The Commission’s latest proposal will be debated by energy ministers from the bloc’s 27 member countries on Thursday.
An EU official said the Commission would propose a price higher than the backers of the cap want.
One diplomat from that camp said the majority group expected the limit at around 150-180 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) for the cap to be activated several times in a year.
But another diplomatic source, from a group of countries opposing a cap, pointed to much higher desirable cap value, if at all.
The Commission’s draft legal proposal says the market correction mechanism was to prevent any repeat of price spikes seen last August when month-ahead TTF prices approached 314 euros/MWh on Aug.26 and stayed above 225 euros/MWh for two weeks in a row.
The ministers on Thursday will debate the formula of the cap, the exact ceiling level, as well as the size of the gap between TTF price for pipeline gas and global LNG prices.
Divided as ever, EU countries might not be able to agree on these crucial details of a cap, said the sources.
(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, Jan Strupczewski)
