A draft regulation to establish a gas market corrective mechanism and a draft regulation on strengthening solidarity "require certain improvements," state news agency Hina quoted Economy Minister, Davor Filipovic, as saying in Brussels on Thursday, without any explanation.

“I think certain improvements are needed in both proposals,” Filipovic enigmatically said before a meeting of the European Union’s energy ministers.

EU ministers will try to reach an agreement on improving coordination of gas purchases, cross-border gas exchanges, and reliable price reference values, as well as on the “corrective market mechanism” that would be activated when the price of gas on the Dutch Stock Exchange (TTF), the reference market, is deemed too high, i.e. when it hovers above €275 per megawatt hour for at least two weeks.

Some member countries, especially those which called for capping the price of gas, including Croatia, were against the proposed scheme, or as the state news platform Hina phrased it, “expressed dissatisfaction with the Commission’s proposal.”

These countries opined that the proposed ceiling is too high and that the corrective mechanism would not have been activated even in August of this year, when for several days the prices went higher than €340 per megawatt hour, without naming any specific person who pointed this out. Currently, the going rate for gas on the TTF is around €120 per megawatt hour.

In late September, a group of 16 member states, which have a qualified majority in the EU Council, requested capping wholesale gas prices.

“The Commission’s proposal, which was opposed to such intervention on the gas market from the beginning, is practically unworkable because it is clearly not intended to ever be activated, but rather to serve as a deterrent for excessive price increases,” state platform Hina opined.

“The energy ministers of Belgium and Poland called the Commission’s proposal with the €275 ceiling ‘a joke,'” Hina said.