Greece to fight high energy prices with Romania and Bulgaria

Greece will work with Romania and Bulgaria to combat high electricity prices. Greek Energy Minister Theodoros Skylakakis told Greek radio today, according to Reuters. He said the reason was that the European Union’s single electricity market was not functioning in southeastern Europe and that a lasting solution was needed.

Greece gets almost half of its energy cheaply from solar and wind farms. Like other southern European countries, however, it sees prices regularly rise during the warm summer months, when demand for air conditioning is high and electricity supplies from other European countries are insufficient.

“Interconnectors are not sufficient to transmit energy from the Central European market to the southeast. On some days this leads to extreme prices, which are unacceptable,” Skylakakis told the radio station. According to the Greek minister, the EU’s single electricity market is not working.

According to Reuters, the Greek prime minister is expected to send a letter to the European Commission this week addressing the issue. The Energy Ministry said today that the energy ministers of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania are developing a joint initiative to create a “permanent intervention mechanism whenever extreme prices are recorded as a result of southeastern Europe being cut off from the rest of the European energy market.”

Greece’s conservative government extended the windfall tax on energy companies last month. It plans to use the proceeds to fund energy subsidies for consumers struggling with rising costs. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday that his government would continue this policy until European institutions manage to resolve the problem.