According to the state of storage tanks in the EU, Slovakia is the best prepared for winter, claims Galek – Topky.sk

He pointed out that the ministers indicated at the negotiations under the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU what their national governments’ priorities are in the area of ​​energy savings, so that on this basis the European Commission could prepare and present a proposal acceptable to most member states as soon as possible. According to him, Slovakia insists that common solutions at the European level must not only concern the coming winter, which may be critical for many, but must also be generally applicable in the future. At the same time, however, he noted that Slovakia is well prepared for the coming winter, perhaps the best of the European countries, because the gas reservoirs are filled to 80 percent and the flow of gas is ensured based on the contracts that Slovakia has with Norwegian suppliers or through LNG supplies. “When we sum it all up, at the end of the year even without Russian gas, as we expect that there will be no gas at all, our capacity will be 38 terawatt hours. That is what we have available until the end of March. Slovakia’s average consumption is 32 to 36 terawatt hours,” Galek specified. He pointed out that the mentioned 38 TWh does not include supplies that will come to Slovakia from other, smaller gas suppliers outside of Russia. And this calculation does not even include Russian gas, which is still flowing to Slovakia. “But what we emphasized, and what other countries also highlighted, is that the flow of gas within Europe must clearly be maintained. No one must shut down, and if someone orders gas and it arrives at the terminals in Poland, Croatia or Germany, this gas must flow to other countries, other final destinations,” emphasized Galek. Capping prices proved to be impassable As part of the search for ways out of the energy crisis, according to him, capping the prices of only imported Russian gas proved to be impassable. However, there are also proposals to cap the prices of any gas imported into the EU market. Galek reminded that there are Eurobloc countries that can imagine such a blanket ceiling, and therefore the energy ministers on Friday called on the European Commission to present a concrete proposal on how it could work in practice. He pointed out that there is a Spanish and Portuguese model of capping the prices of imported gas, but the Spanish have 8.7 billion euros approved for this scheme in state aid. “We can put a ceiling on it and say that from now on Europe will not buy more expensive gas above a certain price. But on the other hand, we must find a solution to ensure such gas for every single country and for every consumer, including Slovakia, which in this model finds itself at the end of the supply chain chains,” explained Galek.