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State Secretary Sven Giegold said: "Today’s Energy Council points a clear way towards lower gas prices, a faster expansion of renewable energy and more European solidarity in the energy crisis. We intend to buy gas together to reduce gas prices in the interest of all citizens by means of our common market power. In addition, we will better coordinate the filling of our gas reservoirs and we want to make more efficient use of our cross-border networks. Furthermore, we will create a new, voluntary reference price for LNG and prevent excessive price volatility on the gas market through 'circuit breakers'. These measures will help us to reduce gas prices. We will thus achieve more security for the coming winter. Today, we have also discussed proposals by the Commission for a market correction mechanism. We will engage in further discussions with our European partners before adopting the proposals. We agree that the security of supply in Europe must be upheld.

"At the same time, we have succeeded in resolutely speeding up the creation of a favourable environment for the expansion of renewable energy. To this end, we will adopt a genuine 'booster' for renewable energy. The agreement on the acceleration regulation is an important key to quickly become independent of Russian gas and at the same time attain our climate targets. The EU recognises that renewable energy and the necessary related grid infrastructure are in the overriding public interest and that their authorisation and planning have priority. The expansion will thus be massively accelerated in the coming years. Existing barriers in the form of slow and lengthy authorisation procedures for solar installations on buildings and  heat pumps will be removed. Replacing existing installations with more modern and more efficient ones will also be made easier. These immediate measures will provide a strong boost on our way out of the energy crisis. In addition, we are sending a clear message to all German approval authorities: examinations in line with the nature conservation legislation can be simplified in accordance with EU law provided that it is clear that the population of a specific species is not jeopardised. We will thus achieve comprehensive legal certainty for simpler and faster authorisations in the field of the expansion of wind power."