OUR European Union facing the worst energy crisis what it has known for decades, and there are already signs that its member states are not united on the issue. First, both prices and dependence on Russian energy differ from country to country, and the gap between the two is likely to widen as Italy announced changes to the way it calculates energy tariffs for consumers. From October, tariffs in Italy will no longer be based on the EU reference price. which are contracts of Holland. Instead, they will be linked to Italian gas contracts. This was announced by the Italian energy regulator, known as ARERA.

Italy has already stockpiled large amounts of gas and decoupled energy tariffs from the EU base price.

The sudden move likely betrays an expectation, or at least a hope, that the prices of the two natural gas contracts will be decoupled, Citigroup said. Over the past month, Italy has managed to quickly collect and store natural gas, and in August it has the opportunity to collect additional reserves, so there is plenty of gas in the country. In a word, in this case, “confidence in the fuel supply in Italy will improve significantly, and gas prices in the country will fall,” Citigroup analysts emphasize. EU solidarity is being tested as Russia cut off gas supplies, apparently in response to Western sanctions imposed on it following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The gas contracts are a reference price in Europe and are traded in Amsterdam. Their price has more than doubled this year, reflecting the overall energy risk facing Europe. However, some member states, such as Italy in this case, have many more alternative suppliers and are not as dependent on Russia. Among them is liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Algeria. In contrast, other countries, especially those in Eastern Europe, are much more dependent on Russian pipeline gas and do not have networks connecting them to large LNG terminals.

Hungary has already announced it will ban energy exports due to an “energy emergency” and plans to secure further gas supplies from Russia. And, of course, many other countries are planning to close their borders and prevent any export of natural gas if the situation worsens. However, as Citigroup highlights, for Italy the risk of a winter without natural gas has been significantly reduced.