The same went for a call by Jørgensen last week for consumers to reduce fuel use; national capitals would rather wait for central guidance from the Commission, according to a European energy official familiar with member-country deliberations who, like others cited in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak openly.
Both O’Brien and Jørgensen also warned that it was important for such measures to be targeted and temporary to avoid uneven application that could distort the EU’s single market.
The despair over energy costs lent an experimental air to the closed-door discussions held in the imposing Dublin Castle in the city center. Officials discussed lowering electricity taxes, feeding surplus energy from electric vehicles back into national grids, and listened attentively when Ukrainian officials, invited alongside British, Norwegian and Moldovan delegates, offered to store European natural gas supplies on behalf of the bloc in its vast underground caverns. These boast the largest natural gas storage capacity in Europe, Moldova’s energy minister, Dorin Junghietu, said.
Junghietu added that Europe needed “quick, tangible results” to bring down costs. He said the best way to do this was to make it easier and cheaper to invest in household renewables like solar, but acknowledged that this would be difficult in countries where deeper, structural changes to grids are necessary.
The EU’s helplessness was apparent when officials were pressed on whether the EU was prepared for a possible U.S. ban on fuel exports, after Trump appeared to endorse the idea earlier this month. Ministers largely expressed hope that such a ban wouldn’t happen, while urging Washington to rethink.
Jørgensen told reporters he sent a “clear signal” to his U.S. counterpart, Chris Wright, that the U.S. ought to retreat from the threat, and said he was happy to see Wright publicly agree that it wouldn’t work. O’Brien said conversations with U.S. officials during a visit to Washington and New York last week had reassured him that the plan wouldn’t go ahead.