From the BBC:
But the focus now is on finding a European solution. And not a few EU figures, French President Emmanuel Macron included, have said they'd love the UK to be part of a plan. More on that later.
The drive for the common EU approach is manifold. In part, it comes from the same post-Covid crisis realisation that as part of a single market, when the economies of some member states suffer, it pulls everyone down.
There's also an appreciation that there's strength in numbers. Countries such as Italy and Germany have been busy trying to find alternative energy suppliers - in Algeria and the UAE, for example. But if the EU as a whole, with its economic clout, makes the energy deal, the conditions are likely to be more favourable.
"We have to achieve that we only pay the world market price, rather than a higher price," said Mr Scholz on Wednesday. His Belgian counterpart, Alexander De Croo, pointed out that gas prices in Europe are currently double those in Asia and 10 times as much as in the US.
EU purchasing power would also avoid one member state trying to outbid another in their scramble for energy. Not a good look when it comes to EU unity.
I said years ago that European countries (all of them, not just EU Member States) should use their bulk-buying or oligopsony power to drive down the 'world' price we pay for oil and gas, preferably to extraction cost plus profit margin. This is not an exact science and there is no right answer. Maybe they could buy it up centrally and then auction off oil and gas between themselves, with centralised profits (or losses) being shared per capita or something?
It can't possibly be much worse that the current set-up with wild price fluctuations and windfall profits (and occasional 'windfall losses') arising to exporting countries). If that subsidises European countries who are struggling economically, it sure as heck is better than subsidising Saudis, Putin etc. Again, if we stopped kow-towing to the Yanks where Venezuela or Iran are concerned, so much the better, it's about diversity of supply, playing off Iran against Saudis and so on.
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