The European Union’s executive body has said it is not possible to cap gas prices without simultaneously affecting long-term contracts or security of supply, two diplomatic sources told Reuters.

After much wrangling at an overnight summit, EU leaders agreed last month to ask the European Commission’s executive commission to propose a “temporary EU framework for capping the price of gas for electricity generation” and a “dynamic price cap”. operations with natural gas” to reduce prices.

But a compromise between France, Spain and Belgium, who want a cap, and a German-led camp opposed to it, meant that additional conditions were added, namely that any cap must not affect long-term contracts, lead to increasing gas consumption or forcing producers to divert supplies elsewhere.

“Now the Commission has said that it is impossible to have a limit that meets these criteria,” one of the diplomats said, adding that representatives of the 27 EU member states in Brussels will discuss it next Friday.

• EU ministers supported the “dynamic limitation” of gas prices

The issue has divided EU countries for months as they seek ways to deal with a severe energy crisis that is fueling record inflation and threatening a bloc-wide recession.

A second diplomat said the Commission had instead proposed a “voluntary market correction mechanism” which, however, did not go far enough for those countries which had demanded a cap to immediately curb price rises.

The two diplomats said some of the 15 countries demanding the cap had threatened to block other elements of the leaders’ October energy deal, which also includes the launch of joint procurement and the development of a new price benchmark, until the Commission presents a credible cap proposal.