{"id":447181,"date":"2026-03-10T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/03\/10\/verso-il-consiglio-europeo-italia-germania-e-belgio-convocano-un-pre-vertice-su-semplificazione-e-caro-energia\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T20:09:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:09:05","slug":"italy-germany-and-belgium-call-a-pre%e2%80%91summit-on-simplification-and-high-energy-prices-ahead-of-the-european-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/10\/italy-germany-and-belgium-call-a-pre%e2%80%91summit-on-simplification-and-high-energy-prices-ahead-of-the-european-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy, Germany and Belgium call a pre\u2011summit on simplification and high energy prices ahead of the European Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels -Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/strong>, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever<\/strong> have convened a pre-summit<\/strong> of EU leaders for today (10 March), ahead of the European Council<\/a> on 19 March, to discuss bureaucratic simplification and energy price containment. According to European diplomatic sources, the meeting will take place via videoconference, and the number of heads of state and government present is expected to be “in double digits,” around a dozen.<\/p>\n

Cutting red tape has long been one of the EU’s main priorities, with Italy, Germany, and Belgium placing particular emphasis on this issue. On 12 February, ahead of the informal European Council meeting in Alden Biesen<\/strong>, Belgium, the three countries organised a meeting<\/a> to discuss bureaucratic streamlining and competitiveness. The issue of high energy prices, on the other hand, was added to today’s video conference agenda as an “emergency” item. The recent military escalation<\/a> in the Middle East and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz,<\/a>\u00a0a strategic route for oil trade,\u00a0have already had serious consequences for energy supplies throughout the West: yesterday, the price of Brent crude oil soared past the 100 dollar per barrel threshold<\/a> for the first time since the end of 2022.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rumours are already circulating about possible solutions designed to cushion the price increase and ensure a continuous supply of energy.\u00a0According to the Financial Times<\/a>, the G7 finance ministers<\/strong> (the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Italy)\u00a0reportedly discussed\u00a0yesterday the possibility of using strategic oil reserves<\/strong> to avoid an inflationary shock that could affect the global economic system. This would be an emergency measure: it was last used after the outbreak of civil war in Libya in 2011. Another hypothesis circulating among major European newspapers is\u00a0a price cap<\/strong> on the main energy sources.<\/p>\n

Meloni and Merz speak the same language on numerous issues announced at the 23 January Italian-German summit<\/a>. On that occasion, Rome and Berlin supported reducing bureaucracy\u00a0to increase European competitiveness, shared a tougher approach to irregular migration,<\/strong> and, in foreign policy, demonstrated their desire to adopt a less muscular approach<\/strong> than\u00a0French President Emmanuel Macron towards Trump’s impulsive decisions on tariffs and Greenland<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around a dozen EU countries are expected to take part in the video conference. On 12 February, prior to the informal meeting in Alden Biesen, Rome, Berlin and Brussels had already organised a meeting on competitiveness and simplification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7899,"featured_media":447162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30800],"tags":[30339,25801,27335,28413,29635,26064,27500,33323,27356],"class_list":["post-447181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-bart-de-wever-en","tag-belgian-cat-en","tag-council-en","tag-expensive-energy","tag-friedrich-merz-en","tag-giorgia-meloni-en","tag-petroleum-en","tag-sburocratizzazione","tag-simplification-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7899"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447248,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447181\/revisions\/447248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}