EU Commission to get mandate for bloc's joint gas purchases

EU leaders have agreed for officials in Brussels to make joint gas purchases for the bloc as it struggles with high prices amid Russia's war on Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday.  

"What we decided, for the first time, is that the European Commission will have a mandate to do joint procurement, which is exactly what we decided, remember, for vaccines at the time of the Covid crisis," Macron told journalists after an EU summit in Brussels.

Discussions on energy dominated Friday's final session of the two-day summit, which on Thursday was given over to a show of Western unity against Russia by US President Joe Biden participating.

On Friday, Biden and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced plans for Washington and Brussels to work together to source US and other alternative natural gas sources for Europe as it weans itself off Russian gas.  

Formal conclusions from the second day of the summit said the joint-purchasing plan for gas and other Commission steps to mitigate high market prices would be "voluntary" and "time limited".

The joint purchases of gas would also be open to Ukraine and other non-EU countries, including Western Balkans ones and Georgia and Moldova.

EU leaders recognised that, inside the bloc, the needs and energy mixes of the bloc's 27 nations varied widely.

Some, in the east, were deeply dependent on Russian gas, while others such as Spain and Portugal found themselves less connected to the rest of Europe in terms of supply lines.

"It's a bit tricky," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, explaining that it would fall on private companies across Europe that have existing contracts to buy gas.

Summit discussions on the issue were very technical and dragged out because, as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte put it, it involves "literally thousands of contracts, hundreds of parties and also has a very big difference between regions, between member states".

The Commission has been told to come back to leaders with a "comprehensive and ambitious plan" on how to phase out Russian coal and gas while not exacerbating price hikes by the end of May.

Short-term measures such as energy tax cuts and price capping are to be looked at -- but with the proviso that the fundamentals of market trading were not undercut.