Greek PM: EU working on common initiative to contain natgas prices

The European Union is working towards a common intervention aimed to reduce natural gas prices, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Friday, following the end of an informal EU Summit in Prague.

Moreover, he expressed optimism that the next EU Council meeting, in two weeks, will result in a tangible EU-wide decision.

“Even if it delayed, Europe must now do the right thing, and we must utilize the power that the European family offers us, united, in order to lower natural gas prices, while ensuring supply in the process,” he said.

Asked about his intervention, after a brief but belligerent address by Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the official dinner at the European Political Community summit in Prague, where the Turkish leader again hurled insults at Greece, Mitsotakis said “the government and I, personally, will not allow any challenge to go by without a response. I believe all the participants witnessed for themselves and reached their own conclusions.”

Conversely, he also gave the increasingly bombastic Erdogan the benefit of the doubt, following the latter’s inflammatory comment that “(Turkish forces) will come at night,” saying it sounded more ambiguous than threatening, based on a simultaneous translation.
“I will take the positive interpretation and say that no, it was not a threat against Greece. I cannot imagine us continuing in this climate. I made a note of what he said, namely, that Turkey has no intention to challenge the national sovereignty of any other country. I also made a note of this as a comment toward a positive direction. I just hope that this is followed up and an end comes to this unacceptable rhetoric of challenging Greece’s national sovereignty as far as the eastern Aegean islands are concerned,” he added.