Action plan to reduce energy bills for households and businesses will be developed by the Commission in response to a question, co-signed by New Democracy MEP Dimitris Tsiodras and other 18 MEPs from various Southern and Eastern European countries.

Specifically, as noted by Commissioner Candri Simpson, “this Plan will lead to more affordable energy prices”, while, she adds, “this policy response should include increasing the flexibility of the region’s energy systems to improve their capacity to absorb temporary sharp price increases”.

And it underlines “the need for a more integrated European energy system, with greater physical interconnection capacity between regions and fewer restrictions on the use of available interconnection capacity for cross-border trade”.

According to the statement, “this is a request of the Greek government, which was put forward by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a letter to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.”

In their question, Tsiodras and the other MEPs had pointed out, among other things, that “electricity prices in the countries of South-East Europe have increased dramatically compared to other regions of Europe, approaching the highest prices observed in the EU during this period” and that “this unevenness has a serious negative impact on industrial competitiveness and consumer prices, while jeopardising economic convergence within the EU”.

MEPs had asked the European Commission to assess the causes of the imbalances in electricity prices in these countries and to take the necessary action to address this imbalance.