Greek Minister of Energy Theodoros Skylakakis has criticized the EU’s single electricity market, highlighting significant price disparities between neighboring regions and calling for intervention. Skylakakis pointed out that while Austria’s electricity prices are around €154/MWh, neighboring Hungary’s prices are substantially higher at €238/MWh. He stressed that this discrepancy underlines the need for EU action.
To address these issues, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria plan to collaborate on a “Balkan Front” aimed at seeking solutions. Their strategy involves either increasing energy flows from Western Europe to Ukraine or securing financial support for Balkan countries to help affected businesses and consumers. They also intend to investigate whether limited energy flows from Western Europe to Ukraine are due to interconnection capacity constraints and how energy flow algorithms impact pricing.
Greece, which relies heavily on solar and wind energy, often faces high electricity prices during peak summer months due to increased demand for cooling and lower supply from interconnected countries. Skylakakis noted that the current infrastructure is insufficient to balance these price spikes and called for a permanent mechanism to manage extreme price fluctuations, highlighting the need for better integration of southeastern Europe into the broader European energy market.
