EU plans emergency intervention to stem surging power prices

Bloomberg

The European Union (EU) is planning urgent action to try to dampen soaring power prices and is putting together proposals to reform the electricity market, according to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“Skyrocketing electricity prices are now exposing, for different reasons, the limitations of our current electricity market design,” von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive body, said on Monday in a speech at the Bled Strategic Summit in Slovenia.
“It was developed under completely different circumstances and completely different purposes,” she added. “That’s why we are now working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market.”
The unprecedented spike in power prices, which have soared almost 10-fold in the past year, has fueled inflation and dramatically increased the economic burden on businesses and households recovering from pandemic.
More and more member states are calling for a price cap and the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, has convened an extraordinary meeting of energy ministers on September 9.
The exact makeup of an EU intervention plan is still being developed, and EU diplomats said the commission could offer a detailed plan as soon as this week.