Electricity and gas prices have fallen significantly. Was it because of the Commission’s announcements on intervention in the electricity market? Or simply because a bubble burst? German Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck announced that he would influence gas prices through “smart, structured purchasing behavior”. According to information available to Europe.Table, the Greens in the European Parliament intend to present a detailed proposal for joint gas purchasing in the next few days. That the Iberian Peninsula could become a hub for the distribution of gas to the rest of Europe was the key topic during the talks at Schloss Meseberg. Manuel Berkel and Claire Stam summarize the most important developments from the energy sector.
Wien Energie needs billions of euros in financial guarantees from the state to secure electricity supplies in the capital. “The security of supply of Austria’s largest city is at risk,” warned Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) in light of the municipal company’s unexpected financial needs of up to €6 billion. The impending insolvency of the energy supplier has caught Austria completely unprepared and could become a political disaster for the opposition party SPÖ, as Hans-Peter Siebenhaar reports.
At yesterday’s meeting of defense ministers, member states agreed to begin preparations for a military mission to train Ukrainian soldiers – not all countries are equally convinced. The idea is to “build an army that has to fight and will do so for a long time,” said Josep Borrell. Countries could help according to their specialization, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs said – for example, in logistics, military health care and protection against nuclear or chemical weapons, as Ella Joyner reports from Prague.
Are they reassured or spooked now? In any case, the announcement by EU leaders on Monday seems to have made an impression in one place: the electricity and gas markets on the continent. Compared with the highs of Friday, prices fell sharply yesterday, as they did at the beginning of the week. The gas price for September fell from €339 to at times €250 per megawatt hour, the electricity price for the coming year from €985 to €610. According to energy experts, this could well be due to the Commission’s announcements – or simply the bursting of a speculative bubble.
“It’s hard to answer that definitively,” says Hanns Koenig of Aurora Energy Research. “Especially for power, prices on the futures markets had moved away from levels that could be explained purely by fundamentals in recent weeks. So a correction would not be unusual per se.” However, he said, the price reduction could well be linked to the Commission and Council’s plans for short- and medium-term intervention in the electricity market.
Koenig also referred to an announcement made by Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck on Monday. Because Germany is one month ahead of its storage target, gas will no longer be bought at any price in the future, the Green politician had said.
Yesterday evening, Habeck announced further movement in gas purchasing. There is the possibility of influencing gas prices through “smart, structured purchasing behavior,” Habeck said. He added that this would be discussed at the EU Council of Energy Ministers on September 9. According to information available to Europe.Table, the Greens in the European Parliament want to present a detailed proposal on joint gas purchasing in the next few days. This should be decided by the Commission and the Council demanded MEP Rasmus Andresen. Months ago, the Commission had already set up a joint energy platform, hoping for lower prices. So far, however, the EU-wide gas procurement is not getting off the ground.
However, the main topic at the Energy Council will probably be the increased electricity prices. According to Koenig, in addition to the Spanish model, Greece’s proposal to introduce separate electricity markets for renewable and conventional energy sources continues to be the main topic of discussion. “I think both are highly problematic,” the energy expert said. “A rational policy, in my view, would be to at least partially skim off the high additional profits currently accruing to some generators to keep energy affordable for vulnerable households and businesses.”
The Centre for European Policy (CEP) is also skeptical about short-term market intervention. “I have not yet seen any other model for the electricity market that would be better than the current one. You can’t get out of the rules of the market economy,” says lawyer Götz Reichert. “Price caps sound popular, but who decides on the level according to what criteria? The price is simply the most honest signal about which goods are in short supply, who should save and in which cheaper technologies to invest.” A temporary mechanism to curb electricity prices had already been unveiled by the Regulatory Assistance Project in April.
The originator of the Spanish model was a guest at the cabinet meeting of the German government in Meseberg yesterday. However, the main topic was the gas infrastructure as a prerequisite for joint procurement. Olaf Scholz assured Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of his support for a gas connection from the Iberian Peninsula.
“I am also very grateful to Chancellor Scholz for his vision that we accelerate these connections,” said Sánchez, for his part, before mentioning, without mentioning France, an addition to MidCat. “We know that if these connections develop along the lines of REPowerEU, as we discussed this summer, there are other possibilities for connection, namely connecting the Iberian Peninsula with Italy.”
Sánchez added that Spain could meet 30 percent of the EU’s LNG demand if his country and Portugal were connected to the European gas grid. Spain has six LNG regasification plants, making it the country with the largest regasification capacity in the entire EU. Portugal has one such plant. So the peninsula has the infrastructure to become a hub for distributing gas to the rest of Europe. However, France would still need to complete its part of the MidCat. Here, Sánchez is counting on Berlin’s powers of persuasion over Paris.
Further cooperation on offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea became apparent yesterday. Eight countries bordering the Baltic Sea – including Germany – agreed on a massive expansion. The offshore wind capacity is to be increased sevenfold by 2030, said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at an energy summit of the littoral states in Copenhagen. Greater use of wind power could reduce dependence on Russian energy.
Electricity savings, on the other hand, do not currently play a prominent role. For the gas sector, the energy ministers had agreed on a joint savings target of 15 percent. A similar step for electricity is not currently on the agenda, according to a survey by Europe.Table among the EU representatives of the member states. Poland even referred to its rejection of savings commitments like those for gas.
At the Commission, the importance of efficiency continues to be stressed behind closed doors. Saving energy is “almost a precondition for any other solution,” a source told Europe.Table. However, no concrete proposal for saving electricity has yet emerged from the Commission. A drop in demand could have a price-reducing effect.
“Just announcing a savings target could take pressure off in the short term,” says Marco Wünsch of analysis and consulting firm Prognos. “But then there would have to be real measures that reduce electricity consumption. Then there would also be a sustainable price effect.”
However, the experience with the gas savings target has also caused disillusionment. “Every kilowatt hour saved helps – also in the electricity market,” says Götz Reichert of CEP. “But the gas-saving decision showed that conditions in the member states vary widely. With an electricity savings decision, there would probably be many national exceptions again.” with Claire Stam, dpa, rtr
Austria’s largest energy supplier Wien Energie is facing financial disaster. The company has unexpected financial needs of up to €6 billion. Due to failed futures transactions on the stock exchange, the company of the city of Vienna needed financial guarantees of at least €2 billion in the first attempt on Tuesday to avoid insolvency and guarantee security of supply.
According to the city’s leadership, the financial requirements will be reviewed by the City Audit Office and external experts. “I want to show that there is nothing to hide,” said Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) on Tuesday. On the part of the city of Vienna, there is talk of a financial “protective shield” of up to €6 billion. The Ministry of Finance does not want to transfer billions without guarantees. “The dimension is already huge,” said Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) on ORF.
According to its own information, the City of Vienna has already helped Wien Energie with €700 million in recent weeks. To buy electricity on international energy exchanges, the utility currently needs very high levels of funding to secure future supply contracts (futures). Wien Energie generated sales of €3 billion last year. In the same period, net income fell by 61 percent to €140 million. Electricity sales most recently amounted to over 10,000 gigawatt hours (GWh).
The financial scandal shakes Austria to its core. Wien Energie’s difficulties caught the country completely unprepared. The concern of the nearly two million citizens in Vienna is great. “The security of supply of Austria’s largest city is at risk,” warned Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens). However, the Wien Energie disaster is still an isolated case in Austria. According to Gewessler, no other large energy suppliers in the Alpine Republic have liquidity problems similar to those of Wien Energie. Currently, the regulatory authority E-Control is conducting an investigation to get a financial overview of the market.
The scandal threatens to become a political disaster for the opposition party SPÖ. The Social Democrats had recently gained a lot of momentum in polls and had risen to become the most popular party in the country. The governing ÖVP party, on the other hand, has been in a low mood for months. Both SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner and SPÖ mayor Ludwig made eloquent efforts to limit the damage.
The fact that the Austrian capital has applied to the federal government for a credit line of €6 billion to be able to make any bail-out payments that may be necessary at short notice for energy transactions on the electricity exchanges is not an unusual occurrence. It is a matter of bridging, “the money will then be paid back again,” says city boss Ludwig.
The Social Democrats spoke of a “crazy” electricity market with sharply rising, unpredictable prices. Again and again, they refer to the reorganizations of the electricity market in the EU. A special meeting of EU energy ministers will be held on September 9. “Austria is not an island when it comes to electricity,” Energy Minister Gewessler said. In her view, a European solution is needed. The black-green coalition in Vienna wants to present plans for an electricity price cap soon.
According to its own statement, the federal government was informed about the financial disaster of Wien Energie only at short notice by the City of Vienna. Finance Minister Magnus Brunner criticized the alleged speculative transactions on the energy exchange on Tuesday on ORF.
According to experts, Wien Energie gambled on futures on the stock exchange. “The transactions were not normal,” said Austrian energy market expert Walter Boltz. “I do think that the Viennese took a risk, certainly in the hope of getting financial benefits for Viennese customers here,” said the former head of energy regulator E-Control in Austria.
He criticized the volume of Wien Energie’s stock exchange transactions. “If this results in obligations to provide collateral of up to six billion, then the sum of the transactions was simply too large for the Viennese,” Boltz said.
Meanwhile, Vienna rejects the accusation of speculative trading. Vienna’s City Finance Councillor Peter Hanke (SPÖ) pointed to the “moon prices” for electricity as an explanation for the financial disaster. Vienna was forced to buy electricity on the energy exchanges. “This is a completely normal process,” said the finance manager. However, the financial guarantees, i.e., deposits, are exorbitantly more expensive due to the current market situation. with dpa
The EU wants to start preparations for a military mission to train Ukrainian soldiers. The 27 member states have decided to take the necessary steps to define the criteria for a new joint EU mission, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said after a meeting of defense ministers in Prague on Tuesday. The goal is to “build an army that has to fight and will do so for a long time,” he said.
Exactly what the mission might look like and where it might take place is not yet clear. Germany and other member states have ruled out training the armed forces in Ukraine itself. They say it is now a matter of clarifying what is necessary with Kyiv and defining the legal framework. However, since several states (e.g., Germany, the Netherlands and Finland) are already training Ukrainian forces, the question arose as to what exactly an EU mission would achieve. Establishing an EU mission is more legally burdensome than member state initiatives. But time is of the essence.
Borrell stressed there are still training needs in Ukraine – in the short, medium and long term. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov participated in the talks via video link. According to Borrell, he presented a list of training opportunities at the meeting. The need is “huge”, he said.
Asked what added value an EU mission would bring compared to the efforts of individual member states, Borrell said that member states could “pool capabilities” and help according to their specialization. This could mean, for example, high-level military training, logistics, military health care or protection against nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Earlier, EU Military Committee Chairman Robert Brieger said member states could build on existing efforts – including technical training for weapons delivered to Ukraine. The task now, is to find a benefit that does not just create unnecessary bureaucracy.
Borrell stressed that the final decision for the launch has not yet been made. According to diplomats, countries such as Austria and Italy initially still want to consult at the level of foreign ministers. Hungary is also said to have expressed reservations.
Ahead of the meeting, Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner said the talks were at a preliminary stage about whether a mission could be carried out at all. Her Dutch counterpart, Kajsa Ollongren, was more outspoken in her support for an EU mission, pointing out that her country was already training Ukraine in the United Kingdom together with Germany. Latvia and Finland also expressed their support.
At the meetings in Prague, the member states seem to be saving their strongest emotions for the foreign ministers’ talks on Wednesday. The question of how much to restrict access for Russians to visas in the EU will be at the forefront.
Estonia, Latvia and Finland have announced or already implemented entry bans. Germany, Austria, Greece and Cyprus, however, do not want this. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) warned against making Russians collectively liable. Moreover, such a ban would pose legal problems.
One possible compromise is the complete suspension of the European visa agreement with Moscow, which makes it easier for Russian citizens to enter the EU. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock spoke out in favor of this on Tuesday. This approach could be a “quite good bridge” between the EU states.
The move is unlikely to satisfy the Baltic countries, which want to take much more vigorous action against the influx of Russians into the EU. with dpa
Originally he had no plans to go to Europe. It was more by chance, as Daniel Caspary (CDU) admits, that he ended up in the European Parliament. The man who has been leading the group of German CDU/CSU members in the European Parliament for five years remembers the times when he still sat in the local council of Stutensee in the northern part of Baden and pursued his job as a manager at an energy company every Monday evening: “Local politics was my hobby. Originally, I didn’t want to change anything about it.” But things turned out differently.
Caspary was district leader of the Junge Union (Young Union of Germany) in 2003. His party was looking for a candidate for the European Parliament. Some canceled, so he was asked to do it. That’s how Caspary, a technical economist who had studied economics and reactor safety, ended up in the plenary chamber of the European Parliament. That was in 2004. Caspary was 28.
In the Strasbourg plenum, Caspary sits in the third row not far from Manfred Weber (CSU), the head of the Christian Democrat (EPP) group. When Caspary takes the floor, he sometimes lets himself be carried along even more by the furor of a Young Union politician than by the composure of a long-serving MEP. Now 46, he and his wife have five children between the ages of two and 15.
For 13 years, Caspary did substantive work in the European Parliament. He raised his profile as an expert on trade policy. While the Greens, for example, have rejected every agreement, Caspary has voted for them out of conviction. And it fills him with satisfaction that, for example, the Green Sven Giegold, who as a European still instigated campaigns against TTIP, now has to bring the trade agreement between the EU and Canada (Ceta) to ratification in his new role as state secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs. “The Greens are making sentiment-focused policy, we are making subject-focused policy,” Caspary says.
When Herbert Reul, who until then had been chairman of the group of CDU/CSU members of the European Parliament, became interior minister in NRW in Armin Laschet’s cabinet in 2017, Caspary, at the age of 41, prevailed in the German group as his successor. Andreas Schwab, district chief in South Baden, would also have been ready. Caspary is a power factor among the pro-Europeans in Parliament.
He leads the German group of Union deputies, which with 30 parliamentarians, is the largest national group of any party family in Strasbourg. Not always, but frequently, the German Union deputies vote with one voice. Criticism of Ursula von der Leyen’s course also repeatedly emerges from his squad. For the taste of the CDU/CSU, the German Commission President is always too much on the green track, for example, with the ban on combustion engines or agricultural policy. Caspary has repeatedly had to mediate as a moderator.
Caspary is also a number in his party. He is vice president of the state party. When he first ran for the post and it came down to a fight, then-party leader and Chancellor Angela Merkel was present and made no secret of the fact that Caspary had her sympathies. Caspary prevailed in the vote, but says in retrospect, “I don’t know if Merkel helped me or hurt me more.”
As head of the Strasbourg deputies, Caspary is entitled to a place in the inner circle of leadership of the federal party, the presidium. Initially, he had no voting rights in the rounds. But Caspary showed a sense of power. At a federal party conference, he pushed through an amendment to the statutes. Since then, the head of the German group in the EU Parliament has been a member of the presidium by virtue of his office and has full voting rights. Unlike, for example, the prime ministers. They are only present in an advisory capacity.
For five years, Caspary has already been leading the German Union deputies in the Strasbourg Parliament. Sometimes, he admits in an interview with Europe.Table, “I long for the times when I could work on content.” Markus Grabitz
Electricity and gas prices have fallen significantly. Was it because of the Commission’s announcements on intervention in the electricity market? Or simply because a bubble burst? German Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck announced that he would influence gas prices through “smart, structured purchasing behavior”. According to information available to Europe.Table, the Greens in the European Parliament intend to present a detailed proposal for joint gas purchasing in the next few days. That the Iberian Peninsula could become a hub for the distribution of gas to the rest of Europe was the key topic during the talks at Schloss Meseberg. Manuel Berkel and Claire Stam summarize the most important developments from the energy sector.
Wien Energie needs billions of euros in financial guarantees from the state to secure electricity supplies in the capital. “The security of supply of Austria’s largest city is at risk,” warned Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) in light of the municipal company’s unexpected financial needs of up to €6 billion. The impending insolvency of the energy supplier has caught Austria completely unprepared and could become a political disaster for the opposition party SPÖ, as Hans-Peter Siebenhaar reports.
At yesterday’s meeting of defense ministers, member states agreed to begin preparations for a military mission to train Ukrainian soldiers – not all countries are equally convinced. The idea is to “build an army that has to fight and will do so for a long time,” said Josep Borrell. Countries could help according to their specialization, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs said – for example, in logistics, military health care and protection against nuclear or chemical weapons, as Ella Joyner reports from Prague.
Are they reassured or spooked now? In any case, the announcement by EU leaders on Monday seems to have made an impression in one place: the electricity and gas markets on the continent. Compared with the highs of Friday, prices fell sharply yesterday, as they did at the beginning of the week. The gas price for September fell from €339 to at times €250 per megawatt hour, the electricity price for the coming year from €985 to €610. According to energy experts, this could well be due to the Commission’s announcements – or simply the bursting of a speculative bubble.
“It’s hard to answer that definitively,” says Hanns Koenig of Aurora Energy Research. “Especially for power, prices on the futures markets had moved away from levels that could be explained purely by fundamentals in recent weeks. So a correction would not be unusual per se.” However, he said, the price reduction could well be linked to the Commission and Council’s plans for short- and medium-term intervention in the electricity market.
Koenig also referred to an announcement made by Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck on Monday. Because Germany is one month ahead of its storage target, gas will no longer be bought at any price in the future, the Green politician had said.
Yesterday evening, Habeck announced further movement in gas purchasing. There is the possibility of influencing gas prices through “smart, structured purchasing behavior,” Habeck said. He added that this would be discussed at the EU Council of Energy Ministers on September 9. According to information available to Europe.Table, the Greens in the European Parliament want to present a detailed proposal on joint gas purchasing in the next few days. This should be decided by the Commission and the Council demanded MEP Rasmus Andresen. Months ago, the Commission had already set up a joint energy platform, hoping for lower prices. So far, however, the EU-wide gas procurement is not getting off the ground.
However, the main topic at the Energy Council will probably be the increased electricity prices. According to Koenig, in addition to the Spanish model, Greece’s proposal to introduce separate electricity markets for renewable and conventional energy sources continues to be the main topic of discussion. “I think both are highly problematic,” the energy expert said. “A rational policy, in my view, would be to at least partially skim off the high additional profits currently accruing to some generators to keep energy affordable for vulnerable households and businesses.”
The Centre for European Policy (CEP) is also skeptical about short-term market intervention. “I have not yet seen any other model for the electricity market that would be better than the current one. You can’t get out of the rules of the market economy,” says lawyer Götz Reichert. “Price caps sound popular, but who decides on the level according to what criteria? The price is simply the most honest signal about which goods are in short supply, who should save and in which cheaper technologies to invest.” A temporary mechanism to curb electricity prices had already been unveiled by the Regulatory Assistance Project in April.
The originator of the Spanish model was a guest at the cabinet meeting of the German government in Meseberg yesterday. However, the main topic was the gas infrastructure as a prerequisite for joint procurement. Olaf Scholz assured Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of his support for a gas connection from the Iberian Peninsula.
“I am also very grateful to Chancellor Scholz for his vision that we accelerate these connections,” said Sánchez, for his part, before mentioning, without mentioning France, an addition to MidCat. “We know that if these connections develop along the lines of REPowerEU, as we discussed this summer, there are other possibilities for connection, namely connecting the Iberian Peninsula with Italy.”
Sánchez added that Spain could meet 30 percent of the EU’s LNG demand if his country and Portugal were connected to the European gas grid. Spain has six LNG regasification plants, making it the country with the largest regasification capacity in the entire EU. Portugal has one such plant. So the peninsula has the infrastructure to become a hub for distributing gas to the rest of Europe. However, France would still need to complete its part of the MidCat. Here, Sánchez is counting on Berlin’s powers of persuasion over Paris.
Further cooperation on offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea became apparent yesterday. Eight countries bordering the Baltic Sea – including Germany – agreed on a massive expansion. The offshore wind capacity is to be increased sevenfold by 2030, said Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at an energy summit of the littoral states in Copenhagen. Greater use of wind power could reduce dependence on Russian energy.
Electricity savings, on the other hand, do not currently play a prominent role. For the gas sector, the energy ministers had agreed on a joint savings target of 15 percent. A similar step for electricity is not currently on the agenda, according to a survey by Europe.Table among the EU representatives of the member states. Poland even referred to its rejection of savings commitments like those for gas.
At the Commission, the importance of efficiency continues to be stressed behind closed doors. Saving energy is “almost a precondition for any other solution,” a source told Europe.Table. However, no concrete proposal for saving electricity has yet emerged from the Commission. A drop in demand could have a price-reducing effect.
“Just announcing a savings target could take pressure off in the short term,” says Marco Wünsch of analysis and consulting firm Prognos. “But then there would have to be real measures that reduce electricity consumption. Then there would also be a sustainable price effect.”
However, the experience with the gas savings target has also caused disillusionment. “Every kilowatt hour saved helps – also in the electricity market,” says Götz Reichert of CEP. “But the gas-saving decision showed that conditions in the member states vary widely. With an electricity savings decision, there would probably be many national exceptions again.” with Claire Stam, dpa, rtr
Austria’s largest energy supplier Wien Energie is facing financial disaster. The company has unexpected financial needs of up to €6 billion. Due to failed futures transactions on the stock exchange, the company of the city of Vienna needed financial guarantees of at least €2 billion in the first attempt on Tuesday to avoid insolvency and guarantee security of supply.
According to the city’s leadership, the financial requirements will be reviewed by the City Audit Office and external experts. “I want to show that there is nothing to hide,” said Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) on Tuesday. On the part of the city of Vienna, there is talk of a financial “protective shield” of up to €6 billion. The Ministry of Finance does not want to transfer billions without guarantees. “The dimension is already huge,” said Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) on ORF.
According to its own information, the City of Vienna has already helped Wien Energie with €700 million in recent weeks. To buy electricity on international energy exchanges, the utility currently needs very high levels of funding to secure future supply contracts (futures). Wien Energie generated sales of €3 billion last year. In the same period, net income fell by 61 percent to €140 million. Electricity sales most recently amounted to over 10,000 gigawatt hours (GWh).
The financial scandal shakes Austria to its core. Wien Energie’s difficulties caught the country completely unprepared. The concern of the nearly two million citizens in Vienna is great. “The security of supply of Austria’s largest city is at risk,” warned Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens). However, the Wien Energie disaster is still an isolated case in Austria. According to Gewessler, no other large energy suppliers in the Alpine Republic have liquidity problems similar to those of Wien Energie. Currently, the regulatory authority E-Control is conducting an investigation to get a financial overview of the market.
The scandal threatens to become a political disaster for the opposition party SPÖ. The Social Democrats had recently gained a lot of momentum in polls and had risen to become the most popular party in the country. The governing ÖVP party, on the other hand, has been in a low mood for months. Both SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner and SPÖ mayor Ludwig made eloquent efforts to limit the damage.
The fact that the Austrian capital has applied to the federal government for a credit line of €6 billion to be able to make any bail-out payments that may be necessary at short notice for energy transactions on the electricity exchanges is not an unusual occurrence. It is a matter of bridging, “the money will then be paid back again,” says city boss Ludwig.
The Social Democrats spoke of a “crazy” electricity market with sharply rising, unpredictable prices. Again and again, they refer to the reorganizations of the electricity market in the EU. A special meeting of EU energy ministers will be held on September 9. “Austria is not an island when it comes to electricity,” Energy Minister Gewessler said. In her view, a European solution is needed. The black-green coalition in Vienna wants to present plans for an electricity price cap soon.
According to its own statement, the federal government was informed about the financial disaster of Wien Energie only at short notice by the City of Vienna. Finance Minister Magnus Brunner criticized the alleged speculative transactions on the energy exchange on Tuesday on ORF.
According to experts, Wien Energie gambled on futures on the stock exchange. “The transactions were not normal,” said Austrian energy market expert Walter Boltz. “I do think that the Viennese took a risk, certainly in the hope of getting financial benefits for Viennese customers here,” said the former head of energy regulator E-Control in Austria.
He criticized the volume of Wien Energie’s stock exchange transactions. “If this results in obligations to provide collateral of up to six billion, then the sum of the transactions was simply too large for the Viennese,” Boltz said.
Meanwhile, Vienna rejects the accusation of speculative trading. Vienna’s City Finance Councillor Peter Hanke (SPÖ) pointed to the “moon prices” for electricity as an explanation for the financial disaster. Vienna was forced to buy electricity on the energy exchanges. “This is a completely normal process,” said the finance manager. However, the financial guarantees, i.e., deposits, are exorbitantly more expensive due to the current market situation. with dpa
The EU wants to start preparations for a military mission to train Ukrainian soldiers. The 27 member states have decided to take the necessary steps to define the criteria for a new joint EU mission, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said after a meeting of defense ministers in Prague on Tuesday. The goal is to “build an army that has to fight and will do so for a long time,” he said.
Exactly what the mission might look like and where it might take place is not yet clear. Germany and other member states have ruled out training the armed forces in Ukraine itself. They say it is now a matter of clarifying what is necessary with Kyiv and defining the legal framework. However, since several states (e.g., Germany, the Netherlands and Finland) are already training Ukrainian forces, the question arose as to what exactly an EU mission would achieve. Establishing an EU mission is more legally burdensome than member state initiatives. But time is of the essence.
Borrell stressed there are still training needs in Ukraine – in the short, medium and long term. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov participated in the talks via video link. According to Borrell, he presented a list of training opportunities at the meeting. The need is “huge”, he said.
Asked what added value an EU mission would bring compared to the efforts of individual member states, Borrell said that member states could “pool capabilities” and help according to their specialization. This could mean, for example, high-level military training, logistics, military health care or protection against nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Earlier, EU Military Committee Chairman Robert Brieger said member states could build on existing efforts – including technical training for weapons delivered to Ukraine. The task now, is to find a benefit that does not just create unnecessary bureaucracy.
Borrell stressed that the final decision for the launch has not yet been made. According to diplomats, countries such as Austria and Italy initially still want to consult at the level of foreign ministers. Hungary is also said to have expressed reservations.
Ahead of the meeting, Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner said the talks were at a preliminary stage about whether a mission could be carried out at all. Her Dutch counterpart, Kajsa Ollongren, was more outspoken in her support for an EU mission, pointing out that her country was already training Ukraine in the United Kingdom together with Germany. Latvia and Finland also expressed their support.
At the meetings in Prague, the member states seem to be saving their strongest emotions for the foreign ministers’ talks on Wednesday. The question of how much to restrict access for Russians to visas in the EU will be at the forefront.
Estonia, Latvia and Finland have announced or already implemented entry bans. Germany, Austria, Greece and Cyprus, however, do not want this. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) warned against making Russians collectively liable. Moreover, such a ban would pose legal problems.
One possible compromise is the complete suspension of the European visa agreement with Moscow, which makes it easier for Russian citizens to enter the EU. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock spoke out in favor of this on Tuesday. This approach could be a “quite good bridge” between the EU states.
The move is unlikely to satisfy the Baltic countries, which want to take much more vigorous action against the influx of Russians into the EU. with dpa
Originally he had no plans to go to Europe. It was more by chance, as Daniel Caspary (CDU) admits, that he ended up in the European Parliament. The man who has been leading the group of German CDU/CSU members in the European Parliament for five years remembers the times when he still sat in the local council of Stutensee in the northern part of Baden and pursued his job as a manager at an energy company every Monday evening: “Local politics was my hobby. Originally, I didn’t want to change anything about it.” But things turned out differently.
Caspary was district leader of the Junge Union (Young Union of Germany) in 2003. His party was looking for a candidate for the European Parliament. Some canceled, so he was asked to do it. That’s how Caspary, a technical economist who had studied economics and reactor safety, ended up in the plenary chamber of the European Parliament. That was in 2004. Caspary was 28.
In the Strasbourg plenum, Caspary sits in the third row not far from Manfred Weber (CSU), the head of the Christian Democrat (EPP) group. When Caspary takes the floor, he sometimes lets himself be carried along even more by the furor of a Young Union politician than by the composure of a long-serving MEP. Now 46, he and his wife have five children between the ages of two and 15.
For 13 years, Caspary did substantive work in the European Parliament. He raised his profile as an expert on trade policy. While the Greens, for example, have rejected every agreement, Caspary has voted for them out of conviction. And it fills him with satisfaction that, for example, the Green Sven Giegold, who as a European still instigated campaigns against TTIP, now has to bring the trade agreement between the EU and Canada (Ceta) to ratification in his new role as state secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs. “The Greens are making sentiment-focused policy, we are making subject-focused policy,” Caspary says.
When Herbert Reul, who until then had been chairman of the group of CDU/CSU members of the European Parliament, became interior minister in NRW in Armin Laschet’s cabinet in 2017, Caspary, at the age of 41, prevailed in the German group as his successor. Andreas Schwab, district chief in South Baden, would also have been ready. Caspary is a power factor among the pro-Europeans in Parliament.
He leads the German group of Union deputies, which with 30 parliamentarians, is the largest national group of any party family in Strasbourg. Not always, but frequently, the German Union deputies vote with one voice. Criticism of Ursula von der Leyen’s course also repeatedly emerges from his squad. For the taste of the CDU/CSU, the German Commission President is always too much on the green track, for example, with the ban on combustion engines or agricultural policy. Caspary has repeatedly had to mediate as a moderator.
Caspary is also a number in his party. He is vice president of the state party. When he first ran for the post and it came down to a fight, then-party leader and Chancellor Angela Merkel was present and made no secret of the fact that Caspary had her sympathies. Caspary prevailed in the vote, but says in retrospect, “I don’t know if Merkel helped me or hurt me more.”
As head of the Strasbourg deputies, Caspary is entitled to a place in the inner circle of leadership of the federal party, the presidium. Initially, he had no voting rights in the rounds. But Caspary showed a sense of power. At a federal party conference, he pushed through an amendment to the statutes. Since then, the head of the German group in the EU Parliament has been a member of the presidium by virtue of his office and has full voting rights. Unlike, for example, the prime ministers. They are only present in an advisory capacity.
For five years, Caspary has already been leading the German Union deputies in the Strasbourg Parliament. Sometimes, he admits in an interview with Europe.Table, “I long for the times when I could work on content.” Markus Grabitz
