Good morning and welcome to the college readout of today with President von der Leyen. Good morning.

We had an orientation debate,

mostly on the economic impact of the crisis in the Middle East on the European Union.

As we all know, since 44 days now, once again, the Middle East has been engulfed in war.

And these past 6 weeks have reminded us that peace cannot be taken for granted.

In recent days it seemed as if a pause was emerging. A ceasefire has been announced. You all witnessed that.

Allow me to say a word of gratitude to Pakistan for the important role they have played to get to this point,

but we also know that negotiations have been stalled now, and we have to see how things go on.

Any agreement will have to address the concerns raised by Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program.

And its actions obstructing the navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz is greatly damaging,

and the restoration of the freedom of navigation is of paramount importance for us.

We're also worried that the continued strike on Lebanon threatened to derail the entire process.

We are mobilizing relief EU stocks to provide immediate aid to the Lebanese people,

but no amount of aid can replace the safety of a permanent peace.

A key lesson of the past weeks is that security is indivisible.

You cannot have stability in the Middle East or the Gulf while Lebanon is in flames.

So we call on all parties to respect the sovereignty of Lebanon and to implement a complete cessation of hostilities.

And as we observe the current fragile ceasefire and despite the uncertainty, I want us to draw together lessons.

This is the main purpose why we had the orientation debate today.

It was not the first one in this crisis, but of course now er with a new and fresh look at the situation. Let's recap.

Since the beginning of the conflict 44 days ago,

our bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over €22 billion. 44 days, €22 billion.

Not a single molecule of energy in addition.

And this shows the enormous impact this crisis has on our economy,

even if the hostilities ceased immediately and the disruption of energy supplies from the Gulf will persist for some time to come.

And therefore we discussed a series of measures that we will present to leaders at the next Informal Council that we have next week in Cyprus.

We will have a communication the Wednesday before the European Council starts in Cyprus,

and today we discussed a number of measures that we could present, and let me mention some of them.

I want to start with the immediate measures.

First and foremost, it is important that we have a robust coordination among the Member States.

Because we've learned in any crisis, unity is our strength.

We have demonstrated this in the 2022 energy crisis with the EU Energy Platform.

Let me just give you two figures that are telling.

This platform has helped to aggregate 90 billion cubic meters of gas purchases for us in the European Union,

90 billion.

And it has connected buyers with suppliers,

with 77 billion cubic meters matched between off-takers and suppliers.

So what I want to say about that is we do not start from scratch with this coordination in the energy sector,

but we can do more, and of course we can do better.

We're also looking into EU wide coordination of Member States' gas storage filling to avoid that many Member States go to the market at the same time,

so they are competing against each other.

And we will also coordinate oil stock releases to achieve the largest possible effect of these releases,

and we will ensure that Member states' emergency measures will not impact the single market. That is the part coordination.

Let me look at the 2nd element we discussed, and this is basically how to approach the different measures.

That member states might apply to better protect vulnerable households and vulnerable sectors from the high energy prices.

Here it's very important, I mean it's just 3 years ago or 4 years ago that we had the last energy crisis.

We went through that one and that we really learned the lesson from this energy crisis.

The measures should be targeted, so not overall, but targeted to vulnerable groups, timely.

They have to be fast, not in a year, but immediately. And temporary.

So for a short amount of time you can apply them, but if they are cast in law,

you have to make sure that you get out of the measures in a timely manner.

We will discuss with the Member States and show some typical best practices, how to design income support schemes,

this all will be in the communication that we will present next week.

Already this week, we will consult Member States on more flexible state aid rules, that's an important tool too. This gives the Member States more space.

For the temporary state aid support in the most exposed sectors,

and my goal is that this temporary state aid framework should be adopted still this month so that we have in April the new temporary framework for state aid. That is this part of support measures.

And the third element is how can we reduce the demand,

because of course the least expensive energy is the energy that is not used.

We should reduce demand while fully respecting the free choice of consumers,

so we are looking at energy efficiency levels such as renovation of buildings or the renewal of equipment in industrial operations.

These are some measures,

but there are also other measures that we will present or that will be the core of the presentation of the communication next week on the table of the leaders. So far for the immediate measures.

Now, at the same time,

we all know that we also will need more structural measures to bring down energy prices and to give relief to citizens and businesses.

As you recall at the last European Council,

we had already a very constructive discussion on the four cost components for the energy bill.

You might recall the biggest chunk of course is the energy source itself, but then you have the grid charges,

you have the taxes and levy, and the smallest part is the ETS.

We discussed that at the last European Council.

So we are partially delivering already on what we have discussed in the European Council and designing new elements.

So the first one we looked at is the ETS cost.

I want to repeat it's the smallest amount in the energy bill.

Here we have already now proposed changes of the market stability reserve. We are stopping the cancellation of allowances.

We are boosting the firepower of the reserve, and with this we are enhancing, which is very important, the stability.

And the predictability of the ETS prices without losing the important price signal.

In addition, we will shortly consult Member States on updated ETS benchmarks, using all the flexibilities the legal text gives us,

and we are on track to present the full review of the ETS system as announced in July.

Then the second part of the two other cost components are, as I said, electricity taxes and the grid charges.

Here the work is advancing on the legislative proposals with which we will come.

And today this discussion has confirmed that we will present these legislative proposals in May.

And finally we'll discussed as I called it the biggest chunk of the energy bill this is the energy source itself.

He is very important to recall if we widen the picture for a moment.

As I said, the Strait of Hormuz is essentially closed, and immediately citizens feel the impact.

They feel the impact at the gas station, they feel the impact in the supermarket, on the household bills.

So what we are seeing in the Middle East is not some distant crisis,

but in a world in which everything is connected, the effects are direct and they are immediate.

And this is, as I said, the 2nd fossil fuel crisis in just a few years.

There's one thing that all these events make clear,

we are paying a very high price for our overdependency on fossil fuels.

And the grim reality for our continent is fossil fuel energy will remain the most expensive options in the years to come.

But on the other hand, we also have assets. Europe has assets.

We have the electricity that is produced in Europe from renewables and from nuclear.

And therefore our strategy to decarbonise has not only been confirmed in the last years but is growing in importance day by day. And our objective is very clear.

We need to scale up the homegrown, affordable, reliable energy.

This is the wide range of different renewables we have, but it is also,

of course, the nuclear because they give us independence, predictability, and energy security.

And the only lasting way out of the fossil dependency is to modernize.

To modernize by shifting electricity generation to renewables and nuclear,

and then of course by electrifying the economy as rapidly as possible.

We have made progress in Europe, where growing renewables and nuclear energy is concerned, just a figure.

They both now account for over 70% of our electricity generation,

but of course we need to go much further.

And these clean energy sources need better integration in the energy system.

I think you're all aware of the fact that at the moment,

huge volumes of clean power remain unused or are even wasted.

So what we need is storage, we need flexibility, we need to accelerate the grid connections and to improve this overall situation,

we have presented the grids package in December, as you might recall.

The initial goal was to have it agreed with the co-legislators at the end of this year. I think this is too much time.

The sense of urgency is too high,

so I would really like to urge the co-legislator that we have approved this important package by the beginning of the summer.

We also need to accelerate the electrification of our economy, of our industrial operations, of how we heat our homes, of our mobility.

In other words, electrifying Europe means making Europe more independent.

But at the moment we're lagging behind with electrification behind the United States, for example,

behind China, so we will present our electrification strategy also before the summer.

This will include an ambitious new target on electrification. Only what gets measured gets done.

And to achieve this, we have to remove remaining regulatory obstacles and we have to mobilize investment. This is my last point here. Investment regarding the public money.

I will again encourage the Member States to make better use of the EU funding we have, for example, the cohesion funds.

The money is there, you can invest it.

In grids, in storage, in batteries,

please use that manual now because we need this improvement of our energy system.

But we also know that public money is not enough, so we also need much more private capital.

And we will therefore convene an investment conference to mobilize private investment in these areas.

So as you see,

there's a lot of work going on to confront the reality and the challenges we face. This was an excellent orientation debate.

It will certainly not be the last orientation debate concerning this crisis,

but it is a good ramp building up for the next week's communication.

In preparation of the European Council in Cyprus, thank you very much President.

We can take a couple of questions, Jorge.