European consumers need a cap on all wholesale gas prices, not a “political” cap on Russian imports, Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straten told Reuters.

Speaking ahead of emergency talks with the European Union aimed at lowering energy prices due to take place on Friday, Van der Straten said Belgium wanted to set an EU-wide dynamic price cap on exchange-traded gas linked to Asian markets to to guarantee security of supply, according to the news. .ro

The cap on the price of imports of Russian pipeline gas, proposed by the EU executive ahead of ministerial talks on Friday, has so far caused mixed reactions among the bloc’s 27 countries.

Power prices in Europe have risen sharply since economies last year began to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis caused by gas cuts from Russia in response to Western sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Our intention, first of all, is to lower prices. Restrictions on Russian gas will not lower prices. Restrictions only on Russian gas are purely political. There is not much Russian gas to Europe, so I do not see the added value of this,” Van der Straten said. .

She added that Spain, Poland and Luxembourg are in favor of restrictions, while Germany has reservations.

“We need to intervene at the wholesale market level … so it can affect electricity bills,” she said, adding that the cap should be carefully monitored and have a back-up mechanism for when global LNG prices exceed the EU cap.

The Netherlands, which traditionally opposes market interventions, supports a narrower option, only for Russia.

Van der Straten said that energy ministers must give clear instructions to the European Commission to lower energy prices and that the cap could come into effect within days.

“It’s absolutely our intention to have it (in place) before the heating actually starts in the winter,” she said, adding that the price reduction measures are due to take effect in October.

She said joint EU gas purchases needed to be promoted and that the bloc needed a price reform in the energy market that would separate electricity produced from gas and electricity from non-fossil sources such as nuclear or renewables.

For now, using windfalls made by energy companies, as proposed by the Commission, is acceptable, as it would give EU countries money to directly support those facing high electricity bills.