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EU ‘vigilant’ on fairness of German gas cap plan

The European Commission will be vigilant over the impact on EU competition of Germany’s 200-billion-euro ($194-billion) plan to cap energy prices, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told AFP on Friday.

“I have taken note of the announcement of the German plan, which we will have to look at in detail in the coming days,” said Breton.

Berlin’s spending spree has drawn criticism from several European leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who called the plan unfair to heavily indebted countries with no such spending room.

Germany “has decided to appeal massively to the market to get into debt again, very significantly: 100 billion euros for defence, 95 billion for energy, and now, with this new plan, 200 billion,” he said.

“The question now is how to offer member states that do not have these margins of manoeuvre the possibility of supporting their businesses and industries, as was the case during the Covid crisis,” he said.

This was a reference to the EU’s historic 800-billion-euro covid recovery plan that saw richer nations, such as Germany, pitch in financial aid to more financially fragile countries such as Italy and Spain.