EU fails to reach agreement on electricity market reform
After a day of negotiations on 19 June, the EU countries failed to reach an agreement on electricity market reform and the negotiations will continue at a later date.
EU countries mainly disagree on the issue of extending coal subsidies. At the day’s negotiations, the Swedish EU presidency put forward a proposal that would allow countries to extend subsidies for coal-fired power plants, which countries including Austria, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg opposed, saying it would undermine Europe’s goal of tackling climate change. But the proposal was backed by countries such as Poland, which gets about 70 per cent of its electricity from coal.
On the same day, EU energy ministers met in Luxembourg to explore ways of reforming the design of the EU electricity market. One of the goals of the reform is to protect consumers from price spikes by improving the way the long-term electricity market works in order to reduce the dependence of electricity prices on unstable fossil fuel prices.
