European Political Community Summit in Prague: An overview

The First informal Summit of the European Political Community kicked off in the Czech capital Prague on 7th October, 2022 to discuss national security, the energy crisis, and inflation. 44 European countries’ leaders, including the EU, Turkiye, UK, and Serbia, launched a ‘strategic’ discussion on continents’ security and stability. Except for Belarus and Russia, the whole European continent was at the summit. The leaders discussed European security at the meeting to improve the security environment, prepare for further escalation of the Ukrainian conflict and handle the energy crisis and inflation.

While commenting, the French President viewed the summit as a crucial moment that brought the message of European unity and started a strategic discussion that had never existed before. He further regarded the summit as agreeable on a common purpose at the commonplace, often the same history, and committed to writing the same record.

The summit of the European Political Community would be a helpful forum that would bring together political leaders more often to exchange views on critical issues without the pressure of having to agree on the official communiqué, viewed the German Chancellor. The summit would be suitable for peace, security order, and economic development and prosperity, and improving relations with neighboring countries seeking EU membership.

To some, such a move to call for a summit might be ‘United Nations in Europe”. Members voiced hope that despite their diversity, the 44 leaders would be able to find a ‘common position’ and set a ‘common good’ and support for Ukraine.

At the summit, the issues highlighted were energy crisis, national security, and inflation. The energy crisis in European states is severe and has entered a new stage.

The member states believed that only a typical joint response could reduce energy costs for families and businesses and provide energy security for now and the coming winter.

To resolve a standard solution, the leaders of the European member states met in Prague for an informal summit on 7th October, 2022 focusing on energy, the economic situation and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

To resolve the crisis of high energy costs, leaders recommended stepping up negotiations with the suppliers to reduce the prices of imported gas of all kinds, developing an intervention level and limiting expenses in the natural gas market, and limiting the inflationary pressure of the gas on gas electricity.

They agreed to introduce a temporary cap on gas prices that have been used to generate electricity. The members reiterated have strong unity as European Parliament has called for an EU bloc-wide gas price cap. The member states opined to have better, more regular cooperation between states on long-term gas prices. The member states expressed their concerns about the gas storage situation by spring.

Currently, their gas storage has been at 90 per cent and unless a refilling has been made with supplies from Russia, the ensuing winter would be severe. They planned to buy reasonably priced gas from reliable partners to face such a situation.

However, the proposal of capping the gas price faced resistance from the current President of the Council of EU. He stated that the EU could not be expected to agree on limiting the price of gas at the Prague or October summit in Brussels as the problem has been complex and would require a longer time.

The President was critical of the German proposal for state support, pointing out that finding a joint European solution appeared better than seeking national solutions. The German government planned to spend 200 billion Euros (190 billion USD) to soften the impact of the high energy prices, which was sharply criticized by some other EU member states. According to some members, a national solution approach proposed by the German government would put some members in a disadvantageous position against Germany.

In addition, the EU leaders would examine ways and means to protect their countries’ critical infrastructure. Very recently, several leaks have been detected on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near Denmark and Sweden, an incident reportedly being investigated as possible sabotage. The leaders further discussed the overall economic situation. The Eurozone’s inflation rose by 10 per cent in September, a record high since the launching of the single currency in 1999.

EU leaders were no closer to price cap on Russian gas at the Prague summit. They have agreed to give more financial and military aid to Ukraine but were no closer to deciding on whether or how to cap gas prices. However, most of the EU’s 27 member states want a cap on gas prices to deal with soaring prices amid Russia’s gas supply decline.

Gas and electricity prices have skyrocketed because of Russia’s turning off the taps in response to the EU’s slapping successive waves of sanctions on Moscow for the war in Ukraine. European Commission President proposed a ‘road map’ of measures to help ease the burden, including a potential price cap. Ideas including capping the price of Russian gas imports, reducing the price of other gas imports, limiting the price of gas used for electricity generation, and capping the price of gas transactions within the bloc were discussed by the members at the summit.

Everyone agreed to lower power prices, but there was no agreement on what instrument would be used.

Some of the members believed that much work needed to be done before an agreement could emerge. The members at the Prague summit also discussed military aid to Ukraine to fight Russian forces. The leaders discussed the German government’s plan to provide subsidies to ease higher energy prices to families and businesspeople. However, the project was rejected by other members as giving grants to business people would mean providing a competitive edge to German business people over business people of other member states.

Without a reasonable solution to reduce high energy costs at the summit, citizens in different member states have started protesting higher energy prices.

The one-day summit ended on the 7th October, and demonstrations surfaced in Prague, Germany, France, and Poland, which might be followed in other states. This could be another “Arab Spring’ for European states. Trade Unions have extended support to demonstration. Anti- Nazi demonstration has been expected for higher energy and food prices. The far rightwing party (AFD) arranged protests in Germany for high energy prices and lowering the standard of living due to inflation. Member states have been planning to put a tax on suppliers’ profits.

At the same time appealed to citizens to cut gas consumption by 5 per cent and use austerity measures in electricity consumption. Various steps have been on the card to meet the high energy prices.

The writer is former Director General, EPB. He can be contacted at [email protected]