EU leaders reach compromise on energy after long debate

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders struggled for hours Friday to find a compromise on a deal aimed at curbing energy prices that have gone through the roof and hurt households and businesses across the 27-nation bloc.

There was a clear rift between the bloc's southern and northern nations during the day-long talks in Brussels, with Mediterranean countries led by Spain pushing for intervention on the market with measures like price caps while Germany and the Netherlands resisted drastic options.

Leaders, however, did agree on a proposal from the European Commission to move toward the joint purchase of natural gas and ensuring that the bloc’s storage facilities are nearly full to try to avoid another energy crisis tied to the EU’s dependency on Russian energy.

The war in Ukraine has made EU nations realize they have been way too reliant on Russia for natural gas and oil to warm their homes and run their industries.

Earlier in the day, the United States and the EU announced a new partnership to reduce the continent’s reliance on Russian energy. Under the plan, the U.S. and other nations will increase liquified natural gas exports to Europe by 15 billion cubic meters this year. Even larger shipments would be delivered in the future.

Facing protests at home from farmers, truckers and the fishing industry, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had put forward plans to the EU to decouple electricity from gas prices. Yet the radical options failed to gather an immediate consensus. The EU will revisit the matter in May but Spain and Portugal could receive special dispensation to weather price hikes in the meantime.

“The Iberian peninsula has a very special situation. There, their energy mix is with a high load of renewables, this is very good,” EU Commission President...