It’s one of a number of new measures the EU executive is exploring to help shield countries from rising prices as national capitals grow nervous at the prospect of an energy crunch. At the same time, it risks provoking a backlash from industry, which has long questioned the effectiveness of coordinated fuel buying, News.Az reports, citing Politico.
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The EU first introduced so-called demand aggregation in 2023, encouraging EU buyers to come together in a shared venue, AggregateEU, to pool gas demand and match it with foreign supply, allowing them to pursue both bilateral and joint deals. The idea was to increase companies’ bargaining power and prevent them from bidding against each other, scoring cheaper prices and preserving the single market.
While AggregateEU has since been absorbed into a broader set of tools, the Commission is seeking to expand those tools to “facilitate coordinated EU outreach to oil and gas suppliers and partner countries with similar energy import profiles,” it said in written comments set to be delivered later this week, seen by POLITICO. It said it will do this by “fully mobilizing” platforms that succeeded AggregateEU, which include venues for coordinating purchases for hydrogen and raw materials.The implication is the new platform will also boost coordination around oil purchases, amid growing worries around jet fuel supplies. The Commission will also “seek to step up international cooperation to increase supply from our neighbourhood and through the EU network of trade agreements,” it added.
The goal is to “have bargaining power over Asia,” said one person familiar with the Commission’s position who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
But reviving coordinated buying could prove controversial. AggregateEU, the original iteration, was widely criticized, with opponents calling for more transparent data and questioning the Commission’s assertion that the system had broad uptake. Others argued that EU interference could upend delicate supply chains and that bilateral dealmaking between established market participants was more effective.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said earlier this month that the platform has helped aggregate 90 billion cubic meters of gas purchases and match 77 billion cubic meters of demand for the EU since 2023, but it remains unclear whether those figures reflect realized purchases.
Von der Leyen herself acknowledged that the platform needed work. “We do not start from scratch with this coordination in the energy sector, but we can do more and we can do better.”
Still, the push to revive the platform reflects growing EU calls for a more united front against the bloc’s mounting energy woes.Since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year knocked out around a fifth of the world’s gas supply — briefly doubling the price of the EU’s benchmark gas price, the TTF — EU governments have already coordinated extensively, making use of EU forums to share data and information. The EU has also encouraged them to reduce gas storage targets to 80 percent of domestic capacity to prevent panic buying.
But even though that has helped settle gas prices in the weeks since, some countries are still keen to avoid uncoordinated action that creates imbalances across the single market, while leveraging the financial firepower of wealthier neighbors to secure better prices on international markets.
It’s unclear to what extent companies have taken advantage of these platforms during the Iran war. In a meeting of energy ministers last month, several countries called on the Commission to encourage greater coordination, according to minutes seen by POLITICO. That need was acknowledged by the EU itself, the minutes show.
The Commission declined to comment.
