{"id":1665748,"date":"2022-09-30T06:07:31","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T10:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1665748"},"modified":"2022-09-30T06:08:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T10:08:01","slug":"eu-countries-approve-energy-windfall-levies-turn-to-gas-price-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/eu-countries-approve-energy-windfall-levies-turn-to-gas-price-cap\/","title":{"rendered":"EU countries approve energy windfall levies, turn to gas price cap"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Feu-countries-approve-energy-windfall-levies-turn-to-gas-price-cap%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1665748&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Kate Abnett and Gabriela Baczynska<\/p>\n<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union countries agreed on Friday to impose emergency levies on energy firms\u2019 windfall profits, and began talks on their next move to tackle Europe\u2019s energy crunch \u2013 possibly a bloc-wide gas price cap.<\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1663871513696-art-1\">\n<\/div>\n<p>Ministers from the 27 EU member countries met in Brussels on Friday, where they approved measures proposed earlier this month to contain an energy price surge that is stoking record-high inflation and threatening a recession.<\/p>\n<p>The package includes a levy on fossil fuel companies\u2019 surplus profits made this year or next, another levy on excess revenues low-cost power producers make from soaring electricity costs, and a mandatory 5% cut in electricity use during peak price periods.<\/p>\n<p>With the deal done, countries began talks on Friday morning on the EU\u2019s next move to contain the price crunch, which many countries want to be a broad gas price cap, though others \u2013 most notably Germany \u2013 remain opposed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll these temporary measures are very well, but in order to find the solution to help our citizens in this energy crisis, we need to cap the gas price,\u201d Croatian economy minister Davor Filipovic said on his arrival at Friday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Fifteen countries, including France, Italy and Poland, this week asked Brussels to propose a price cap on all wholesale gas transactions to contain inflation.<\/p>\n<p>The cap should be set at a level that is \u201chigh and flexible enough to allow Europe to attract the required resources\u201d, Belgium, Greece, Poland and Italy said in a note explaining their proposal seen by Reuters on Thursday.   <\/p>\n<p>The countries disputed the Commission\u2019s claim that a broad gas price cap would require \u201csignificant financial resources\u201d to finance emergency gas purchases should market prices break the EU\u2019s cap.<\/p>\n<p>Belgian energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten said only 2 billion euros ($1.96 billion) would be required, as most European imports fall under long-term contracts or arrive by pipeline with no easy alternative buyers. <\/p>\n<p>That would be a fraction of the 140 billion euros the EU expects its windfall profit levies on energy firms to raise.<\/p>\n<p>But Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and others warn broad gas price caps could leave countries struggling to buy gas if they cannot compete with buyers in price-competitive global markets.<\/p>\n<p>A diplomat from one EU country said the idea posed \u201crisks to security of supply\u201d as Europe heads into a winter with tight energy supplies after Russia slashed gas flows to Europe in retaliation for Western sanctions against Moscow for invading Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p>The European Commission has also raised doubts and suggested the EU instead move ahead with narrower price caps, targeting Russian gas alone, or specifically gas used for power generation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to offer a price cap for all Russian gas,\u201d EU energy policy chief Kadri Simson said. <\/p>\n<p>Brussels suggested that idea earlier this month, but it hit resistance from central and eastern European countries worried Moscow would retaliate by cutting off the remaining gas it still sends to them.<\/p>\n<p>By introducing EU-wide measures Brussels hopes to overlay governments\u2019 uneven national approaches to the energy crunch, which have seen richer EU countries far outspend poorer ones in handing out cash to ailing companies and consumers struggling with bills.<\/p>\n<p>Germany, Europe\u2019s biggest economy, set out a 200 billion euro package on Thursday to tackle soaring energy costs, including a gas price brake.<\/p>\n<p>Luxembourg energy minister Claude Turmes urged Brussels to change EU state aid rules to stop the \u201cinsane\u201d spending race between countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the next frontier, to get more solidarity and to stop this infighting,\u201d Turmes said.<\/p>\n<p>($1 = 1.0182 euros)<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Kate Abnett and Gabriela Baczynska; Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, Bart Meijer and John Chalmers; Editing by Jan Harvey)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/business\/eu-countries-to-back\/attachment\/european-union-flags-flutter-outside-the-eu-commission-headquarters-in-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8T05Q-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI8T05Q-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kate Abnett and Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) -European Union countries agreed on Friday to impose emergency levies on energy firms\u2019 windfall profits, and began talks on their next move<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1665748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1665748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1665748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1665748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1665748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}