Emmanuel Macron pledged on Thursday to "
convince
" other Europeans, and therefore to overcome some of the German reluctance, on a common cap mechanism for gas prices used to produce electricity.
"
We support that a lot
," said the French president during a meeting of entrepreneurs organized by the Public Investment Bank in Paris.
“
We will convince the other Europeans
”, “
at the latest
” by the European Council of October 20 and 21 in Brussels, he assured.
“
We are going to put in place a system whereby the gas we use to produce electricity, we are going to put a price ceiling on
it”, which “
allows to lower
” the “
price of the electricity produced
” , he pleaded.
He mentioned the “
Iberian mechanism
”, on the model put in place by Spain and Portugal “
for a few months
” and which “
works quite well
”.
According to Emmanuel Macron, this will contribute to having by "the
end of October, the beginning of November
" prices "
in an area that is much more acceptable " and "
more reasonable
" gas and electricity supply contracts
.
The European Commission ready to “examine” a price cap
The European Commission said it was ready on Wednesday to "
examine
" a cap on gas prices on the European market to deal with the rise in energy bills caused by the war in Ukraine, under pressure from a majority of European states. -- including France, Italy and Poland -- in favor of such a mechanism.
The European Union must discuss it these days at an informal summit in Prague.
Germany, which was the country most dependent on Russian gas, and other European states have so far rejected the idea of a more general price cap on the wholesale gas market.
“
Alongside that, we are going to put European solidarity financing mechanisms as we did during the Covid crisis to prevent us from having a European market which explodes in this crisis
”, assured the Head of State again. French.
Read alsoThe European Commission open to a gas price cap in the European Union
He also felt that the Europeans should put “
all together
” to negotiate prices on the gas market in order to “
weigh
” more.
“
We are going to say with a lot of friendship to our American friends, our Norwegian friends, + you are great, you provide us with gas energy, but there is one thing that cannot work for very long, that is that we cannot pay gas four times as much as you sell it to your manufacturers
,” he insisted.