Muhammed45
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TEHRAN (FNA)- French President Emmanuel Macron criticized the United States for selling its gas to Europeans at a price which is 2-4 times higher than the gas price on the domestic American market. Speaking at a press conference following the EU summit in Brussels, the French leader referred to such a practice as "double standards".
"American gas is 3-4 times cheaper on the domestic market than the price at which they offer it to Europeans. These are double standards," Macron said.
According to him, this should become a topic for discussion, since "it concerns sincerity in transatlantic trade".
"I intend to raise this issue during my visit to the United States in December," the French leader said.
Macron also called on EU countries to prepare spending the winter of 2023-2024 without Russian gas and work to lower energy prices.
"We have a double challenge: to lower prices compared to today and empower ourselves to provide a mechanism to prepare for next winter. It [the next winter] will not be easier than this one, on the contrary - we take into consideration that we will have to do without Russian gas at all. So, we must bring down the price as soon as possible and at the same time be able to get through the winter of 2023-2024," he said.
In this regard, according to Macron, the summit participants agreed on the need to establish a new European price index for gas.
Macron said he is convinced that the current index on Europe's largest gas exchange (Title Transfer Facility, TTF virtual hub) "does not correspond to the reality of the current gas market" and is too susceptible to the actions of traders.
"We supported the proposal of the European Commission to create a new price index, which will allow us to have a real-time indicator that is more honest than the TTF index," he said.
"This is the first point. The second point is the creation of a series of price corridors to avoid market volatility," he added.
Earlier, the European Commission presented a new package of measures to combat the energy crisis in the European Union. In particular, it proposed to introduce dynamic gas pricing on the European TTF Exchange. This measure is expected to be temporary until the EC develops a new LNG price benchmark by March 2023.
The EC also plans to introduce mandatory joint purchases of gas by EU member states at a level of 15% of the total demand, as well as the reduction of monthly energy consumption by 15%.
