Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has made an appeal to the European Commission to address the distortions and fragmentation in the European energy market, which have led to significant differences in wholesale electricity prices between Southeast European countries and the rest of the EU during the summer.
In his letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the Prime Minister emphasized that these issues resulted in sharp price increases and called for an immediate political response from Brussels to tackle the prolonged crisis.
“I am writing to you regarding the issue of electricity prices. In just a few months, wholesale electricity prices in Greece have more than doubled, from €60/MWh in April to €130/MWh in August,” the Prime Minister stated.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis suggested that the EU take measures to enhance cross-border energy transfer capacity, strengthening connections between member states.
He pointed out, “To a large extent, the price increases in Greece reflected regional factors. Similar increases were observed in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and other member states. This is a regional crisis.”
He also highlighted the need for increased oversight of the European energy market, describing it as a “black box” that remains incomprehensible even to experts.
The Prime Minister noted that, apart from weather conditions such as heatwaves and droughts that affected pricing, the energy crisis worsened due to damage caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. As a result, Kyiv, once an energy exporter, now imports large amounts of electricity from the EU, further burdening European energy markets.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis stressed that this is another cost of Russia’s destructive war, which is weighing on European economies and requires a coordinated European response to address the crisis.
In his letter, the Prime Minister made four key proposals:
- Stronger governance: This situation highlights the need for greater coordination and planning at the regional level.
- Increased regulatory oversight by the EU: When prices in one country are influenced by events hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away, national regulation has limited effectiveness.
- A special arrangement for the targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure by Russia: Without sufficient electricity transfers within the EU, the impact of electricity exports to Ukraine is felt only in certain countries.
- New momentum for electrical interconnections: The internal market must be completed.
