BRUSSELS – Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said there is a need to tame irrational increases in energy via coordinated European interventions, and to also highlight the escalating Turkish provocations against Greece as a factor of destabilization in the eastern Mediterranean region, speaking in his doorstep statement at the extraordinary EU Summit in Brussels on Monday.

The Greek premier added his belief that the EU is “close to reaching an agreement which includes sanctions to ban Russian exports of oil and oil products to the EU.”

Energy challenges faced by the EU will also be discussed, he added, and that “it is important to bring back the debate on a ceiling on wholesale natural gas prices, so that we can pull down overall energy costs.”

“We will also have the opportunity to discuss some very interesting proposals submitted by the EU in the framework of the new ‘REPowerEU’ project, he noted, which “Greece can take advantage of by absorbing significant additional resources from the unused Recovery & Resilience Facility (RRF) loans,” he observed.

REPowerEU is the EU’s plan to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels and fast forward the green transition.

Read more: EU Wrestles with Russia Oil Embargo as Leaders Gather

(ANA-MPA/S. Mourelatos)