ATHENS – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis urged Europe on Thursday to shortly discover a method to deal with hovering gasoline and energy costs, which have dented family revenue, or threat seeing the “forces of populism” reappear on the continent.
Power costs have soared since final yr and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed them additional up, prompting the European Union to pledge to chop its use of Russian gasoline by two-thirds this yr by growing imports from different international locations and increasing renewable power.
Greece, which was rising from a decade-long monetary disaster when the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, has spent practically 4 billion euros ($4.36 billion) since final yr to subsidise energy and gasoline payments for households and companies.
Mitsotakis referred to as on Europe to agree on a joint response to hovering power prices.
“It isn't sustainable to impose this burden on our residents, particularly after we’re speaking about costs of pure gasoline that don't replicate the basics of provide and demand,” he mentioned throughout a gathering with EU Power Commissioner Kadri Simson in Athens.
“If we don’t achieve addressing this problem, forces of populism would reemerge in Europe,” he mentioned including that the EU ought to think about a number of choices, together with a Greek proposal for capping gasoline costs and shortly breaking the hyperlink between gasoline and electrical energy costs.
European governments are racing to construct a buffer of saved gasoline forward earlier than the following winter, to assist address potential provide disruptions from Russia, which provides 40% of the EU’s gasoline wants.
The European Fee final month proposed laws requiring EU international locations to fill their gasoline storage to 80% of capability this yr.
Below a plan to safe its power provides if Russia halts gasoline flows, the Greek gasoline grid operator will get a brand new floating tank within the coming weeks to spice up the storage capability of Greece’s sole liquefied pure gasoline terminal, Power Minister Kostas Skrekas mentioned on Thursday.
The Revithoussa terminal off Athens can now retailer 225,000 cubic metres of gasoline.
The intention was to ramp up the terminal’s capability by 150,000 cubic metres, two sources near the matter advised Reuters.
($1 = 0.9174 euros)
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