The Minister of Finance, Fernando Medina, defended today that the rise in energy prices “cannot be solved with fees”, at a time when the European Commission intends to allocate unexpected energy benefits to social support.
“The issue of energy prices cannot be resolved with tariffs,” said Fernando Medina, speaking on the second day of an informal meeting of finance ministers of the European Union (EU), within the framework of the Czech Presidency of the Council, in Prague.
One day after the EU energy ministers discussed in Brussels the emergency measures to be applied at the EU level to alleviate the effects of rising prices in the energy sector, the Portuguese head of Finance supervision said that “fees are a form of exceptional use of income.” for a particular public policy purpose, [mas] the central question is how are the prices” of energy, given the current crisis, aggravated by the war in Ukraine.
“The central question that is being debated in these Councils is the problem of how a solution can be found, to the extent that Europe has made the decision to prepare and take precautions for the suspension of the supply of gas that comes from Russia and all this scenario places the need to find other suppliers, which has put pressure on energy and gas prices, […] and as a result, gas prices are linked to electricity prices in the European space, which do not have that decoupling mechanism that we have, in the end, a complex situation”, highlighted Fernando Medina.
For the official, “this is the most important area, in which action must be taken, because, by the way, when these prices are controlled and if additional income is reduced, the extraordinary income of these companies will decrease.”
Speaking to Portuguese journalists, Fernando Medina also mentioned that “two measures that appear in the underlying proposal, the decision of the ministers to now ask the Commission to prepare the legislative proposals, are measures that are already being implemented in Portugal” .
“In the first place, the separation of what is the separation of gas in the determination of the price of electricity” through the Iberian temporary mechanism and, secondly, “the existence of a regulated gas tariff market, that is to say , to be able to make a rate that is basically protected by contracts”, he concluded.
EU energy ministers held an extraordinary Council on Friday in Brussels to discuss possible emergency measures to be applied at EU level to mitigate the effects of rising prices in the energy sector.
In the end, the European Commission promised “unprecedented measures for an unprecedented situation” in the EU of energy crisis, which will cover “all fronts” and will be presented next week to make the prices of energy services more flexible.
Portugal, for its part, generally agreed with the emergency measures discussed in Brussels to deal with prices in the Energy sector, although considering that some can still be “tweaked”, said the Minister of Environment and Action for Climate, Duarte Cordeiro.
Earlier, on Wednesday, the European Commission already put some ideas on the table, including the imposition of a cap on the profits of low-cost electricity producing companies and a “solidarity contribution” from fossil fuel companies, in addition to set a price cap. on imports of gas by pipeline from Russia to the European Union.
Geopolitical tensions due to the war in Ukraine have affected the European energy market, as the EU imports 90% of the gas it consumes, with Russia responsible for around 45% of these imports, at varying levels between member states.
In Portugal, Russian gas represented, in 2021, less than 10% of the total imported.
Source: Observadora
