September 30 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria does not favour a selective approach to establishing a proposed EU-wide cap on the wholesale natural gas price, caretaker energy minister Rosen Hristov said on Friday.
A measure of this kind ought to be applied on all gas imported into the EU, Hristov said in a statement after an extraordinary meeting of EU energy ministers to discuss proposed mechanisms to tackle soaring energy prices.
"Imposing limits only for Russian gas will in reality represent a sanction rather than an economic measure to stabilise the market," Hristov noted. He added that the European Commission has taken all comments on board and will continue to work on specific measures to be discussed and put to the vote at a subsequent meeting.
The next informal meeting of EU energy ministers is scheduled for October 11-12.
"Russia is a special case and personally I believe we could impose a price cap on all imported Russian gas, including liquefied natural gas. However, some member states see this as a sanction and we do not yet have a consensus on this step, how to limit Russia's ability to finance the war in Ukraine," EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said in a separate statement following the meeting.
The EU must work out a market intervention so as to bring down the cost of the gas purchased by EU customers and reduce the cost of power generation from gas, Simson added.
The 27 EU energy ministers agreed to propose an EU regulation targeting a voluntary overall reduction of 10% of gross electricity consumption and a mandatory reduction target of 5% of the electricity consumption in individually determined peak hours, for the period from December 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023, according to a press release issued by the Council.
Moreover, a cap on market revenues will be set at 180 euro ($176.43) per MWh for electricity generators, including intermediaries that use renewables, nuclear or lignite for production.
Lastly, EU member states agreed on a temporary mandatory levy on the profits of businesses active in the fossil fuels sector, namely crude oil, natural gas, coal and petroleum refining.
In Bulgaria, steps could be taken to top up the state energy security fund by taxing profits generated by private power suppliers as well, Hristov said. Compensations on power prices in Bulgaria are currently wholly-funded through the windfall profits of state-owned energy companies that are members of the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH).
Earlier this week, Bulgaria's caretaker government said it will provide an indicative amount of 3.594 billion levs ($1.79 billion/1.8 billion euro) to extend state compensations for soaring power prices for industrial consumers, power suppliers and grid operators until the end of 2022.
($ = 1.02031 euro)
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)