The European Commission has been studying since the beginning of the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz the possible measures that can be put in place from Brussels to alleviate the effects of the price escalation on the pockets of citizens and the community industry. This geopolitical scenario has caused strong tension in international energy markets, directly affecting Europe due to its structural dependence on imported fossil fuels.
Among the proposals that the Community Executive plans to push forward are some such as favoring teleworking, incentivizing public transport displacements or flexibilizing State aid, with the objective of alleviating both energy demand and the immediate economic impact. These measures seek to act quickly, but also to serve as a bridge towards a deeper transformation of the European energy system.
During the coming weeks, the leaders of the Twenty-Seven will meet in an informal meeting of the European Council in Cyprus, where the Executive will bring to debate each of the measures it intends to approve, as announced by President Ursula von der Leyen last Monday. It is a key meeting in which an attempt will be made to align positions among the Member States at a time of high uncertainty.
The measures, as explained by the president herself, will be "specific, not general, timely, rapid and temporary", which reflects Brussels' intention to act with surgical precision in the face of a changing crisis. The community services are already working on two differentiated scenarios: one more immediate, which would include recommendations for member states to reduce energy demand, and another more structural, focused on preventing possible future shocks and strengthening the resilience of the European energy system.
In this context, the Agencia Internacional de la Energía came to put on the table ideas such as the promotion of teleworking, the reduction of the use of public buildings or the promotion of more efficient consumption habits, all this with the aim of decongesting the energy system in moments of high tension. These are low-cost and rapidly implemented measures that already demonstrated their effectiveness in previous crises.
A set of actions that the European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, said he was evaluating after a meeting with the Energy ministers of the Twenty-Seven. According to various information published by media such as El País and confirmed by community sources, these proposals could be reflected in the plan that Brussels will make known in the coming days.
According to Vice President Teresa Ribera, the package of measures will be "quite balanced between strengthening structural and extraordinary measures for emergency situations". In conversation with the press, she explained that Brussels seeks to launch a general recommendation for moderation, containment, saving, and efficiency, appealing to both governments and citizens and businesses.
Finding solutions to the current crisis within the already existing regulation is one of the priorities of the community Executive. In this area, instruments such as contracts for differences, long-term contracts or the network package come into play, with the aim of "speeding things up" and accelerating the energy transition. It is about strengthening structural measures that were already planned, but whose implementation was progressing at a slower pace than desired.
Furthermore, the Commission plans to push forward a certain flexibility that allows increasing liquidity in the CO₂ markets, thus facilitating the functioning of the emissions trading system. Added to this is the possibility of expanding mechanisms such as the electricity price compensation or the compensation for indirect CO₂ costs within the framework of State aid. These tools seek to alleviate the pressure on industrial sectors especially exposed to the increase in energy costs.
In this regard, it is being discussed what structural measures can be made more flexible and what type of specific supports can be authorized for the particularly affected sectors, based on the experience acquired during previous crises, such as that of 2022. The objective is to avoid past mistakes and design a response that is effective without compromising long-term stability.
Another of the proposals that is being evaluated by the Community Executive is the one put forward by the Spanish Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, together with other European partners, on the possibility of recovering a tax on the extraordinary profits of energy companies.
Ribera has confirmed that it is being analyzed how to articulate this measure so that it is compatible with the legal framework of the European Union and if the Member States wish to advance in it within their fiscal margin. "In principle there is a willingness to support a measure of these characteristics, with technical difficulties, because a fiscal measure would require unanimity", indicated the vice-president.
This type of levy was already applied during the 2022 energy crisis, although its re-edition presents significant political and technical challenges. In fact, a measure of these characteristics would require the unanimous support of the Twenty-Seven, a scenario that for the moment does not seem probable, given the differences among the Member States.
During the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Europe has seen its access to key energy resources such as gas, oil, or aviation fuel significantly reduced, which has had direct effects on numerous industrial processes. This situation has highlighted the vulnerability of the European energy model.
For this reason, Ribera insists on the need to promote energy saving and efficiency through electrification, as well as to promote alternative sources that reduce external dependence. In parallel, debates have been reactivated on the development of technologies such as biogas, biomethane or hydrogen, considered key to diversifying the energy mix.
It will foreseeably be next month when the College of Commissioners gives the green light to new legislative initiatives aimed at acting on other components of the cost of energy, such as electricity taxes and network charges. At this point, the Commission insists that a significant part of the final price of electricity does not depend solely on the wholesale market, but also on fiscal and regulatory factors that vary among Member States.
The Commission is aware that citizens are immediately feeling the impact of the closure of the Strait of Ormuz "at the gas station, in the supermarket and in household bills". Von der Leyen herself has stressed that this is not a distant crisis, but a situation in which "everything is connected" and whose effects are direct on the daily lives of Europeans.
The diagnosis made by Brussels clearly points to the dependence on fossil fuels as one of the main causes of the current shock. Therefore, the community strategy involves expanding the production of local, affordable, and reliable energy, accelerating the transition towards renewable and, in some cases, nuclear sources.
This structural change is presented as a way to strengthen European energy sovereignty, reduce exposure to external crises and move towards a more sustainable model. It is not only about responding to the current emergency, but about laying the foundations for a system capable of anticipating future crises.
In any case, the European Commission is still asking for more time to finalize all the details before presenting its definitive proposal next week. As international tensions evolve, the Community Executive tries to balance the immediate response to the crisis with a long-term strategy that allows Europe to stop reacting in an improvised way to each new disruption.
The ultimate goal is to build an energy system more resilient, integrated, and coordinated at community scale, capable of guaranteeing supply, containing prices, and protecting both citizens and the European productive fabric against future crises.