Sharjah24 – AFP: EU leaders on Friday reached agreement on a "roadmap" aimed at putting in place measures within weeks to shield European consumers from soaring energy prices.
The accord came after 11 hours of wrangling over broad proposals to lower energy bills as gas prices pushed skywards by the war in Ukraine.
The bloc's 27 member states have been squabbling for months over which joint initiatives to adopt, riven by the fact that energy mixes in the countries vary greatly.
While the announcement of the summit text made a public show of unity, it was clear that the coming negotiations would remain difficult. One step in that would come next week with a meeting of EU energy ministers in Luxembourg.
The summit agreement set out a "solid roadmap to keep on working on the topic of energy prices", European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told a media conference.
The published text calls on the European Commission and EU countries in coming weeks to find ways to shield consumers from the high prices "while preserving Europe's global competitiveness... and the integrity of the Single Market".
European Council President Michel said, "the energy crisis represents a threat to the internal market" of the EU and stressed "maximal coordination" was needed to protect it.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who had gone into the summit saying Germany was isolating itself, expressed satisfaction with the result.
"The next two or three weeks will allow the commission to come up with these mechanisms" to be implemented.
He said it sent a "very clear signal to the markets of our determination and our unity".
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said "good progress" had been made.
"We wanted, together, to limit fluctuations that could be caused by speculation."
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