MILAN, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Italy will not be able to cope with soaring energy prices without intervention from the European Union (EU), Italian Council President Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday, adding that the country was spending about five billion euros per month to limit the rise in the energy bill for businesses and families.
“It will be difficult, without EU measures, to meet these costs,” Giorgia Meloni told the annual meeting of the association of Italian municipalities (ANCI) in Bergamo, in the north of the country. .
Meloni’s remarks come as EU energy ministers debated in Brussels on Thursday the European Commission’s proposal to cap the price of gas at 275 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), a measure aimed at curbing the rise prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine but which is causing divisions within the bloc.
Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said on Wednesday that Brussels’ capping plan risked fueling price speculation rather than containing it. (Report Federico Maccioni, French version Diana Mandiá, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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