BAKU, Azerbaijan, The European Council calls on the Council and the European Commission to urgently submit concrete decisions on some additional measures regarding the energy market, Trend reports October 21 with reference to the European Council.

There measure are as follows:

– voluntary joint purchasing of gas, except for binding demand aggregation for a volume equivalent to 15 percent of storage filling needs, according to national needs, and the speeding up of negotiations with reliable partners to seek mutually beneficial partnerships by exploiting the Union’s collective market weight and making full use of the EU Energy Platform, which is open also for the Western Balkans and the three associated Eastern Partners;

– a new complementary benchmark by early 2023 that more accurately reflects conditions on the gas market;

– a temporary dynamic price corridor on natural gas transactions to immediately limit episodes of excessive gas prices, taking into account the safeguards set out in Article 23(2) of the draft Council Regulation proposed on 18 October 2022;

– a temporary EU framework to cap the price of gas in electricity generation, including a cost and benefit analysis, without modifying the merit order, while preventing increasing gas consumption, addressing the financing and distributional impacts and its impact on flows beyond the EU’s borders;

– improvements to the functioning of energy markets to increase market transparency, alleviate liquidity stress and eliminate factors that amplify the volatility of gas prices, while ensuring the preservation of financial stability;

– fast-tracking of the simplification of permitting procedures in order to accelerate the rollout of renewables and grids including with emergency measures on the basis of Article 122 TFEU;

– energy solidarity measures in case of gas supply disruptions at national, regional or Union level, in the absence of bilateral solidarity agreements;

– increased efforts to save energy;

– mobilising relevant tools at national and EU level.

Source: TREND News Agency