Thanks Ebba, and good evening dear journalists.
I want to start by thanking Ebba for the impressive work that you and the Swedish Presidency have made over the past 6 months.
Sweden’s Presidency started right after the peak of the energy crisis.
At the end of December last year, gas prices were at more than 100 euro per MWh. We had months of difficult emergency Council meetings behind us.
But thanks to the steady hand of the Swedish Presidency, we have stayed the course, kept political unity and moved gradually from crisis response to looking again into our 2030 agenda.
This has been a semester of delivery. Together we have closed many important files.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to find a general approach on the whole package of proposals for the reform of the Electricity Market Design.
As Ebba explained, we have a broad consensus on the REMIT proposal and the Electricity Market Design Directive. On the Regulation, we made progress today to bridge differences on most of the outstanding points, but we still have an issue of wording regarding the application of Contracts for difference to investments in existing assets.
This is an important point because it has implications for investment promotion and for the single market and the level playing field among Member States. So we decided that we need some more time to achieve a viable solution.
I am hopeful that Coreper will be able to solve the remaining issues.
I can only repeat that finding an agreement on a reformed market design will be very important to make our energy system more resilient to any new shocks and more fit for our decarbonised future.
We have already shown that we can overcome differences in this Council. Just last Friday evening we have gone past the last outstanding hurdle on the RED directive in Coreper.
This agreement on an ambitious Renewables Directive is not only important to enable investments in clean energy in Europe, but also for the EU to lead by example globally.
We should bring the idea of investing in renewables as the fastest and cheapest way to decarbonise to a global level.
I explained the Ministers the Commission’s initiative to propose open pledges that all willing countries could endorse to contribute to an ambitious outcome of this year’s COP28 in December.
I will come back to this idea at our next informal meeting in Valladolid, in Spain, where we will continue our discussion on the way towards COP28.
This Council was also the opportunity to review winter preparedness and security of supply.
I shared with Ministers the Commission’s outlook analysis.
We are on track to achieve our REPowerEU agenda, and the reduction in Russian gas supplies continues. The LNG market continues to fill most of the shortfall left by the drop in pipeline flows from Russia.
Russian LNG imports remain limited, and over time there will be more space to further reduce them.
I clearly welcome the initiatives taken by the different governments to call on their companies not to sign any new Russian LNG contracts.
I also reported on the outcome of the first call under the AggregateEU instrument, which attracted a demand of 11.6 bcm across European delivery points.
Our measures for a coordinated demand reduction are also working well, as you know. We have saved us 53 bcm between August last year and March this year. Under the Swedish Presidency we very swiftly prolonged the gas demand reduction target until March 2024. This could help save us additional 60bcm of natural gas.
Our gas storage level are historically high, at 72%. We are on track to meet the 90% target well before November.
We have a common assessment that the policies agreed last year have been essential to ease markets and contain gas price volatility.
We see that markets have shown lately some volatility and this should remind us to stay vigilant, as the global supply/demand balance remains very tight.
That’s why, once again, speeding up renewables deployment is so vital for Europe’s energy security.
Finally, I provided the ministers with a snapshot of our external energy outreach during the Swedish presidency. It is crucial for Europe to maintain a good network with our reliable suppliers, and I continue to make this a priority.
I have debriefed on the support provided to Ukraine, which has remained a clear focus of our work.
We have helped Ukraine to repair energy infrastructure, integrate them further into the EU’s energy market and supported with reconstruction. This week the Commission will present new proposals to put our support for recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine on a more stable footing.
Unfortunately, right now the situation in Ukraine continues to be very serious, as we were recently reminded again by the Kakhovka dam attack.
We condemn the reckless act in the strongest possible terms. The situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is fragile, but there is no immediate risk for nuclear safety. We continue to monitor closely and support the International Atomic Energy Agency and their work on the ground.
Today, I assured colleagues that we will provide all the necessary technical support to achieve a general approach and proceed under the Spanish Presidency with trilogues.
I think that even the fact that us and the Nordics will celebrate Mid-Summer in between doesn’t prevent us from reaching another very important milestone, based on the good cooperation and the team spirit Energy Ministers have presented over the past months!
Thank you.
Source – EU Commission