Automotive Expotrs November 2022

EU agrees ‘roadmap’ to contain energy prices
EU leaders on Oct. 21 reached agreement
on a “roadmap” aimed at putting in place
measures within to shield European
consumers from soaring energy prices.
The accord came after 11 hours of
wrangling over broad proposals to lower
energy bills as gas prices pushed skywards
by the war in Ukraine.
The bloc’s 27 member states have been
squabbling for months over which joint
initiatives to adopt, riven by the fact that
energy mixes in the countries vary greatly.
While the announcement of the summit
text made a public show of unity, it was
clear that the coming negotiations would
remain difficult. One step in that would
come with a meeting of EU energy ministers
in Luxembourg.
The summit agreement set out a “solid
roadmap to keep on working on the topic
of energy prices”, European Commission
chief Ursula von der Leyen told a media
conference.
The published text calls on the European
Commission and EU countries to find
ways to shield consumers from the high
prices “while preserving Europe’s global
competitiveness... and the integrity of the
Single Market”.
At least 15 EU countries - more than half
the bloc - are pushing for an ambitious cap
on prices and are increasingly unsettled
by strikes and protests over the cost of
living spreading across France, Belgium and
other member states. But the price-cap
idea has met resistance from Germany,
the EU’s biggest economy, fearing that
gas supplies could end up shifting to
more lucrative markets in Asia. Several
smaller economies are also furious that
the German government will not back a
gas cap and for going it alone in helping
its citizens pay for high prices with a
200-billion-euro ($196 billion) spending
bonanza. In the end, the agreed text said
a “cost and benefit analysis” of a price cap
for electricity generation should be carried
out, and that the impact beyond Europe
would be assessed. French President
Emmanuel Macron, who had gone into the
summit saying Germany was isolating itself,
expressed satisfaction with the result.
He said it sent a “very clear signal to the
markets of our determination and our
unity”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said “good
progress” had been made.
“We wanted, together, to limit fluctuations
that could be caused by speculation.”
There was no hiding, however, a general
Franco-German discord that is simmering.
That became more evident when the
two countries delayed a regular meeting
between cabinet ministers.
But France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le
Maire sought to downplay fears of a rift at
the heart of Europe, telling the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that “no one
can split up the Franco-German couple”.
How he said there was a need for a
“strategic redefinition” of bilateral relations
to produce “a new alliance”.
In another sign the two were not in concert,
France did not consult Germany before
agreeing with Spain and Portugal to scrap
a planned gas pipeline that Berlin has been
pushing for years.
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