Debate: Preparation of the European Council meeting of - October
Date: WEDNESDAY, 19 OCTOBER 2022
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

And I appreciate what I felt was truly general support for the package the European Commission has proposed yesterday. But what was very clear in your statements, be it from Mr Mureşan or Ms Charanzová, but I would say all the honourable Members who took the floor, is that you would like us to be more ambitious. You would like us to be faster and you want to see more details on how these proposed measures would be translated into the real life.  But I think that you will all agree with me that if it comes to what is on the table for our leaders at the European Council, that there are all elements for the solutions to tackle this energy crisis we are facing right now. We are proposing to buy the gas together, as Ms Grapini was referring to, or Mr Schirdewan, in his remarks, something like one and a half hours ago.  To be more precise, what we are proposing is to purchase together at least 15% so we can do more. But we need to start somewhere and we are going to address through this at least 50% purchase exactly that amount of gas, which was most difficult to get to complete a filling-up of our storages and which was also the most expensive. And of course, this is not an easy exercise because we need to set up this new system and at the same time we have to also respect the long-term contracts which are in place and which been valid.  But I think that now we have the solution how to push forward and we are going to discuss how to combine this measure with all other measures which we propose to make sure that we will have security of supplies and adequate flows of energies into the European Union.  Next, a very important point which was mentioned by many of you was the solidarity, especially with those countries which are landlocked and which would have problems if the situation would really become very precarious. And the European way of sharing and protecting a level playing field in our single market, as it was proposed by Mr Cioloş.  All of you have been highlighting the burden our citizens and businesses are carrying because of the high energy prices. And I would like to reassure you, because it was mentioned many times by Ms Iratxe García Pérez, Mr Bellamy, Mr Séjourné, that we are going to present to you in the first quarter of the next year new electricity market design, where we are going to decouple gas from electricity pricing because we know that the market design which served us well until prewar times, is not functioning anymore. And therefore we need to have a new electricity market design to be more appropriate for our European economy.  On top of it, we are going to propose new complementary benchmark to TTF. And to be sure that we act with adequate agility, we are also proposing this market correction mechanism to react to the concrete situation of today. The same comes for the Iberian model, because we see that there are strong merits in this model on how to limit electricity prices in Europe.  But we know that there is a lot of questions we have to answer in a way that it would not lead to an inadequate increase of the consumption of gas, because then we would again be faced with a lack of energy supplies to the European Union.  And of course, what is important for big businesses, we also presented a new temporary framework for state aid to help energy-intensive industries across Europe.  So the proposals are on the table and of course we need the green light and support of the European Council. So we can sit with the energy ministers, we can sit with you, Members of the European Parliament, to hammer out the details. This is a very clear and present urgency and we should act in this manner.  Therefore, if you if you allow me to conclude with a strong, I would underscore strong, plea to the European Parliament. The REPowerEU is discussed in your committees in this House, and you would, I hope, agree with me that we need to the REPowerEU now. We need to use it, if necessary we need to boost it, and we need the REPowerEU so we can transfer this EUR 40 billion from the cohesion policy to REPowerEU so we can support the households, we can support the SMEs in Europe.  So my strong plea would be please make sure that you would respect your calendar and it would have a vote on the REPowerEU in November. The citizens of Europe, businesses in Europe, are waiting for this decision and we are ready to work with you to explore all other possibilities on how to use recovery and resilience facility loans, to use all financial firepower we have at our disposal so we can help the economy and citizens of the European Union.  So I think that if you would demonstrate this can-do attitude and this proactive approach in this very difficult situation, that our debate in November would not be focused on what needs to be done, but how we are going to use the funds, how we are going to use these new tools, which we will be developing in the course of the next weeks. And I think that it would be the best answer to the concerns of the European citizens, European businesses and peoples of the European Union.