According to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Kremlin has behaved “like a drug dealer” when it comes to gas supplies to Europe.
“In the beginning was gas [from Russia] should be very cheap, but the real price of gas as we know it. The real price of gas is also the blood of soldiers and people, children and women in Ukraine and the real price of gas is the harsh winter that is coming in Europe,” he said.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russia stopped the flow of gas to Europe last monthsparked the region’s biggest energy crisis in decades.
Speaking to CNBC’s Charlotte Reed in an exclusive interview on Thursday, Morawiecki said that Europe’s current energy problems are “the consequence of a very wrong policy, a disastrous policy made by Germany” leader.”
The Polish leader made the comments in Prague as 44 European leaders met to discuss the war in Ukraine and Europe’s energy crisis. That is first meeting of a new group known as the European Political Community.
“Without gas, gas and electricity prices are very expensive across Europe – this is the real price of the deal between Germany and Russia,” Mr. Morawiecki said.
Poland, along with Belgium, Italy and Greece, has drafted a plan for a gas “price corridor” across Europe in an effort to reduce rising prices.
Gasoline price at the beginning of the month at the Dutch hub TTF, a European benchmark, was trading around 160 euros ($156) per megawatt-hour on Friday. This is more than four times higher than a year ago, but has dropped to a peak of almost 350 euros at the end of August.
The gas price corridor, “should act as a circuit breaker and discourage speculation. It is not meant to hold prices artificially low,” according to the draft proposal reported by Reuters.
Other countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, are said to oppose the plan, warning that price caps could have a negative impact on energy security.
EU leaders are expected to consider a possible cap on gasoline prices at a summit in Prague on Friday.
“This is our common problem,” Morawiecki said. “It can’t be that a country as rich and developed in Europe as Germany … can stop everything that is happening.”
“We don’t want to be patronized by some country that then behaves in a completely different way than they expected,” he added.
Also speaking in Prague, EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola said the bloc needed to come up with a unified response to the energy crisis.
“There needs to be a gas price ceiling across the EU,” said Metsola.
She said EU member states could be given more time if necessary, but it was important that countries not “outbid each other”.
“I think this is the way to be able to lower the price and stop the speculation, and at the end of the day show Putin that he is not the one who dictates to us who pays and how we pay the bills. “, She added.
