Finance & economics | The libor of energy?

The European Commission searches for a gas-price villain

And settles on a once obscure market

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech during a debate on "The State of the European Union" as part of a European parliament plenary session in Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 14, 2022. (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Sep 15th 2022

The main target of Ursula von der Leyen’s state-of-the-union address on September 14th was energy companies. It is wrong, the president of the European Commission said, for them to make such profits “from war and on the back of consumers”. Windfall taxes raising €140bn ($140bn) would follow, she announced. Yet the speech also included a telling sideswipe at a once obscure part of commodity markets: the Dutch Transfer Title Facility (ttf), a gas-trading network.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “The LIBOR of energy?”