The EU proved to be part of the solution in the COVID crisis and will have to react also in the new situation after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, by capping energy prices among other things, including globally to prevent speculation, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Friday.

“After the Russian invasion, we have three tragedies, the biggest is the one of the Ukrainian people, the second is the big refugee crisis, and the third is the enormous rise in energy prices,” he said in Versailles after a two-day informal EU summit.

The EU proved to be very good in dealing with the pandemic crisis by establishing the special Next Generation EU instrument and through common vaccine procurement and distribution as well as job-retention, Plenkovic said.

“Now it’s necessary to help our fellow citizens and the economy again. It’s best to cap energy prices, but this must be a global action. It’s not good if someone profits from speculative prices, that’s immoral.”

Energy and food cannot be treated as other commodities, Plenkovic said. “We have entered a new phase after Russia’s attack on Ukraine in which energy and food will be our strategic resources and we should adapt to that.”

He said the countries taking in the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees would need financial aid as a huge refugee wave could be expected.

In just two weeks, over two million people from Ukraine have arrived in the EU, while about a million people came during the 2015 refugee crisis.