Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the disruption of Russian gas supplies has led to skyrocketing electricity prices and market volatility, leading the Commission and member states to consider new policy options such as capping prices or decoupling of gas and electricity prices. In recent months, Parliament and Council have adopted an emergency plan for filling gas reserves.

The Commission has also launched the RepowerEU plan to reduce the dependency from Russia, diversify gas supplies, speed up the roll-out of renewable gases and replace gas in heating and power generation as well as EU-wide gas consumption reduction measures.

This can reduce EU demand for Russian gas by two thirds before the end of the year. The EC came with proposals how to deal with the problem during the SOTEU speech of Ursula von der Leyen.

European Union countries agreed on 30th September on series of meeasures, including energy levies on windfall profits of energy companies or binding targets to reduce electricity consumption.