Commissioner: EU to unveil energy crisis responses

The European Union’s next steps for addressing the continent’s worsening energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to be unveiled next week, the European commissioner for energy said Tuesday.

Many European countries have tightened their belts as energy costs soar. Russia’s state-run energy company has continued its shutdown of a pipeline carrying natural gas to Europe, in what German officials see as a political power play, and the European Commission president says the EU’s electricity market “is no longer operating” amid knock-on effects from the Ukraine war.

An extraordinary meeting of the European Union’s energy ministers will be held in Brussels on Friday to discuss a blocwide package of solutions to the power market cost spikes, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told The Associated Press in an interview.

She said the European Commission expects the package will be adopted next Wednesday, and that a decoupling of gas and energy prices, increase in liquidity for the market and

coordinated demand reduction could be expected in it. That could include a temporary capping of the price of gas used to produce electricity, modification of trading rules on energy exchanges and coordinated demand reduction measures like those seen over the summer.

“We know that there are peak hours where our households and enterprises are witnessing extreme high hourly prices,” she said in the interview at the European Delegation office in Jakarta. “Part of this proposal is also dealing with peak hours and how it will cut demand at these specific timeslots.”

European nations have worked to get creative about energy alternatives. One short-term fix is roughly 20 floating terminals that would receive liquefied natural gas from other countries and convert it into natural gas for homes and businesses.

The plan, with the first floating terminals set to start delivering gas by year’s end, has raised alarm among experts who fear the longterm consequences for the environment. They warn that the terminals would perpetuate Europe’s reliance on natural gas, which releases climate-warming methane and carbon dioxide when it’s produced, transported and burned.