Southern EU states agree to unite around energy

OVIEDO, Spain

Leaders from southern EU states agreed at the EU-Med9 summit on Friday to unite around energy and created a joint proposal to present at the upcoming EU energy meeting.

“We’ll have a basket of technical measures that will allow us to limit the volatility of energy prices and avoid speculation,” said French President Emmanuel Macron.

The meeting in the Spanish city of in Alicante brought together leaders from Croatia, the Greek Cypriot administration, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who hosted the meeting, said there was “a clear consensus” around reducing energy prices, including through a cap on the price of natural gas.

“The EU proposal needs adjustments, and we agreed to work on that together so at next week’s meeting, we can agree upon a dynamic and truly effective price cap on gas,” he said.

Spain’s energy minister previously called the EU’s proposed price cap “a joke in bad taste,” and many other EU leaders slammed the draft.

The leaders also mentioned collective EU natural gas purchases, reforming the pricing system, and including a solidarity mechanism.

“We are sending a firm message. We’ve managed to present a solution together. We hope the other states will agree,” said Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob.

EU energy ministers will meet on Dec. 13 in Brussels to try to strike a deal over their next move in response to the energy crisis.