Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, cautioned ahead of Monday’s meeting of the EU’s Energy Council that despite the fact that capping the price of gasoline is a “poor” notion, the EU may execute such a step regardless.
In a post he made on Facebook, Szijjarto expressed his opposition to a price ceiling by stating, “We [Hungary] say no to the price limit since the safety of supply comes first.”
According to what he stated, the imposition of a maximum set price on gas supply would be “terrible, destructive, and hazardous; nonetheless, it seems that it may be adopted despite this.”
The Hungarian minister of foreign affairs made the statement that the next meeting in Brussels is going to be “another major fight” for Budapest.
Szijjarto pointed out that the ministers of energy for the bloc have “probably never met so regularly” as they have done in recent times. He said that “today the debates are necessary since there is an energy crisis in Europe.”
Brussels proposed the so-called market correction mechanism’ in November as an attempt to protect EU businesses and households from “excessively high gas prices.” These prices had skyrocketed as a result of the fallout from the bloc’s sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent drop in Russian energy deliveries to Europe. The so-called market correction mechanism’ was put forward as an attempt to protect EU businesses and households from “excessively high gas prices.”
On the other hand, EU member states have spent the better part of a month looking for a compromise about the proposed price ceiling. Some nations have voiced their worry that the implementation of such a mechanism will just serve to worsen the already volatile market, while others have stated that the floating price level is too high to be useful in regulating prices.
The Czech Republic, which is currently holding the rotating presidency of the European Union, has proposed the most recent attempt at a compromise. According to this plan, the cap would be triggered if gas prices on the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) exchange, which is Europe’s benchmark, exceeded €188 ($199) per megawatt hour for three consecutive days. This figure is significantly lower than the €275 (around $291) per MWh that was initially proposed by the European Commission.
Prior to this, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a warning that his nation would simply cease supplying gas to the EU if the price cap were to be implemented and that the country would instead reroute supplies to Asian clients.