ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece will propose setting up a European Union energy solidarity fund to mitigate the energy crisis impact on households, businesses and consumers, its energy minister said on Sunday, before EU ministers meet on Monday.
“The EU should take decisive collective action to address the energy crisis. Dealing with the problem on an individual basis is not a sustainable way forward,” Energy Minister Kostas Skrekas said in a letter to EU ministers and commissioners.
A prolongation of the crisis in Ukraine will have significant costs for all EU economies, industries and consumers, inevitably leading to severe distortions in the single market, he said.
The proposed EU Energy Crisis Solidarity Facility (ECSF) would provide temporary assistance to member states to help repair the immediate damage caused by the explosion of energy prices, limiting the impact on national budgets.
Under the plan, EU member states would get low-interest loans from the ECSF to finance costs of state intervention aimed at alleviating the impact of the energy price crisis, he said.
Each EU member state would get funding from the ECSF up to a quota with the loans exempted from government fiscal targets with respect to deficits and public debt.
The loans would be serviced during a 12-to-15 year period from future revenues, including special levies applied to energy consumption.
“The continuous rise in energy prices over the past year … had already reached a critical point before the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, it risks getting completely out of control unless we take immediate, decisive measures,” he said.
(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; Editing by Alison Williams)