EU agrees ‘roadmap’

EU leaders has reached an agreement on a "roadmap" aimed at putting in place measures within weeks to shield European consumers from soaring energy prices.

The accord came after 11 hours of wrangling over broad proposals to lower energy bills as gas prices pushed skywards by the war in Ukraine.

The bloc's 27 member states have been squabbling for months over which joint initiatives to adopt, riven by the fact that energy mixes in the countries vary greatly.

While the announcement of the summit text made a public show of unity, it was clear that the coming negotiations would remain difficult. One step in that would come next week with a meeting of EU energy ministers in Luxembourg.

The summit agreement set out a "solid roadmap to keep on working on the topic of energy prices", European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told a media conference.

At least 15 EU countries -- more than half the bloc -- are pushing for an ambitious cap on prices and are increasingly unsettled by strikes and protests over the cost of living spreading across France, Belgium and other member states.

But the price-cap idea has met resistance from Germany, the EU's biggest economy, fearing that gas supplies could end up shifting to more lucrative markets in Asia.

Several smaller economies are also furious that the German government will not back a gas cap and for going it alone in helping its citizens pay for high prices with a 200-billion-euro ($196-billion) spending bonanza.

In the end, the agreed text said a "cost and benefit analysis" of a price cap for electricity generation should be carried out, and that the impact beyond Europe would be assessed.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and the director of China's National Energy Administration Zhang Jianhua on Friday said they would strengthen their ties in the energy sector, the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

The officials spoke in a teleconference call and stressed the importance of stable long-term supplies to crude oil markets, SPA said.

The Saudi minister reaffirmed earlier on Friday from New Delhi that OPEC+ is doing the right job to ensure stable and sustainable oil markets.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have been at odds since a decision by OPEC+ group of oil producers, of which Saudi is the de facto leader, to cut output even after the Biden administration sought to stay OPEC's hand for a month with an eye on US mid-term elections.