Council of EU Energy Ministers;
Credit: EU Consilium
On Monday 19 June 2023, the Luxembourg Minister for Energy, Claude Turmes, participated in the meeting of the Council of EU Energy Ministers in Luxembourg.
The EU Energy Council adopted part of the reform of the electricity market legislative proposal: the section relating to market integrity. Minister Turmes said: “I am delighted that the European agency ACER now has additional powers to investigate cross-border cases of market manipulation, this is excellent news for Europe's energy sector.”
However, the main part of the reform, the “market design” regulation, could not be agreed upon on this day. It will be necessary to continue the negotiations, in particular in order to remove the derogations making it possible to perpetuate the coal subsidies, and to limit the application of the contracts of compensatory differences (CFDs) for the existing power stations intended to finance France's nuclear power plants.
As a reminder, the aim of the reform is to make electricity prices less dependent on the volatility of fossil fuel prices and to protect consumers against price spikes, in particular by improving the functioning of the long-term electricity market.
Ahead of the Energy Council meeting, the so-called "Friends of Renewables" member states - Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Malta, Denmark, Estonia, Portugal, Latvia, Slovenia and Ireland - met this morning to coordinate positions on the organisational reform of the electricity market.
