Emmanuel Macron received the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, in Paris today to find "effective solutions" to the flare-up in energy prices linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It is about "converging effective solutions to limit the increase in gas prices, limiting the impact on electricity prices and having common stock solutions in Europe as well as diversifying our sources of supply", declared the president of France, who currently holds the current EU presidency, welcoming Sanchez to the Elysée.
The priority, Macron continued, is "to prepare the protection of families and businesses in the short term as well as our ability to resist in the medium term", protecting "our energy security for next winter".
This priority is also on the agenda of the EU summit on Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
Sanchez has already seen Prime Minister Mario Draghi in Rome last Friday, together with the Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic, António Costa, and in video link with the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. To "define a common approach" to "push the European Commission and the other member countries to adopt important protection measures for all states ", said Draghi on that occasion, evoking" common "gas purchases and stocks.
After Sanchez's visit, Macron is planning a videoconference on Ukraine with the Italian Prime Minister, US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Macron should then receive Sauli Niinisto, president of Finland, a border country of Russia.