The Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament ask the European Commission and the member states for an investigation on market abuse and manipulation with energy commodities and electricity prices. This is stated in a resolution adopted by the European Parliament on the EU’s response to the increase in energy prices. The document was initiated by the S&D Group and negotiated with the other political groups. The S&Ds were the only ones to include in the resolution the need for social measures to cushion the effect of the energy crisis on citizens by extending the existing European instrument for temporary Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE), created during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mohammed Chahim MEP, S&D vice-president for energy, said:

“The upcoming informal meeting of heads of state or government in Prague, held on October 7th, cannot and should not be a fruitless event. We need more measures to combat these record high energy prices to protect our most vulnerable households and SME's. European and national leaders must be bold and agree on a cap on the prices of gas imported by pipelines to the EU as soon as possible. Our Group is proud to include this in the resolution adopted today. We are also very happy with another major success of ours - the call to introduce the windfall tax on energy companies making excess profits in the current crisis. A way out of the EU’s energy problems is investing and building the interconnectors among different parts of Europe in order to enable transfer of gas and green hydrogen among member states.  We call for a joint procurement of energy resources following the model of the Covid-19 vaccines procurement. This would strengthen EU bargaining power in negotiations with third countries.”

Dan Nica MEP, S&D spokesperson in the European Parliament’s committee on industry, research and energy, said:

“Nobody knows what happens in the virtual trading point for natural gas - what are the acquisition prices when gas arrives in European ports and then how come the reselling prices to consumers are so high? We have to stop this, and that's why we need transparency on the virtual trading point - the Title Transfer Facility (TTF). Discussing and debating about geopolitics and the way we react to turbulent events in the world and around us is a must. But we also have to deal with the root causes of our problems that lie within our Union that caused the failure of the energy market long before the Russian invasion in Ukraine. This is why today we included in the resolution our call for the European and national leaders to stop the indexation of energy contracts to the TTF and to decouple the price of gas from electricity prices. This is a major step towards reducing the volatility of electricity prices in the wholesale market."

Note to editors:

The vote and adoption by the plenary of the European Parliament of the resolution on energy prices today comes as a result of a debate held by the Members of the European Parliament in plenary last month in Strasbourg.