The EU is preparing a structural reform of the electricity market, Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday, August 29.
The President of the European Commission said: “The surge in electricity prices clearly shows the limits of the current functioning of the market.”
The proposed reform has been proposed for a long time by France and will be on the menu of a meeting of EU energy ministers on September 9 in Brussels.
Von der Leyen commented during a conference in Bled, Slovenia, that the electricity market had been designed in a very different context than the current wartime situation. “That is why we are currently working on emergency intervention and structural reform of the market,” she said, without elaborating.
On Sunday, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer called on the EU to “decouple the price of electricity from that of gas” to “stop this madness”.
The French government has been a proponent of price reform for some time, claiming that the current market pricing penalises French consumers as they are not able to benefit from the low cost of electricity produced by nuclear power plants.
However, reform may face strong opposition within the EU. Germany and eight other EU states argued in October 2021 that the current system contributed to innovation and facilitated the transition to green energy.
FILE PHOTO: President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen
