Greece Calls On EU for Fast Response to Surging Energy Prices

Greece is urging the EU to move faster to address the high power and natural gas prices in the bloc that undermine its competitiveness alongside burdening households, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seen by Bloomberg News.

European wholesale electricity prices jumped in November to the highest level in 20 months, additionally burdening the key industries in major economies that had just started to recover from the 2022 energy crisis.

Major economies in Western Europe – Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, have seen a surge in energy costs. Economies in east and southeast Europe, including Greece, have been suffering even more as energy prices have been higher than in Western Europe in recent months.

Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania have already called on the EU to discuss measures to relieve the high prices.

The Greek PM also wrote to von der Leyen in May 2024 urging the European Commission President “to make the Single Market more competitive and transparent for consumers, for a Europe that improves the living standards of its citizens”

In another letter seen by Bloomberg News, Mitsotakis wrote more recently,

“Prices are telling us we need to move faster but also differently — to think about new ways to tackle the problems that confront us.”

Mitsotakis is calling for better integration of the national grids and for additional measures to protect southeast Europe’s and the EU's natural gas security. The Greek PM also seeks limits to the costs of overregulating emissions.

“Shifts in the geopolitical landscape make this task even more urgent,” Mitsotakis wrote in the letter.

The European Union is getting ready to have natural gas hold a smaller share of the energy mix, but “we will depend on gas for at least two decades,” the Greek prime minister noted.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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