After much foot-dragging, the European Commission proposed a cap on the price it will pay for natural gas yesterday. Fifteen of the union’s members had proposed such a cap to limit Russian energy revenues due to spiking gas prices since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but a group of members led by Germany are opposed to it.
As the United Nations COP27 Climate Change Conference closed Sunday, Egypt, this year’s host, hailed the agreements brokered there as a success. But there continues to be a gap between the climate-change commitments most countries in the Middle East and North Africa have formally expressed and their actual behavior.
Multilateralism has suffered in the past six years, but for those who consider it to be as essential as it is imperfect, the past week offers some cause for optimism. It’s premature to declare that multilateralism “is back.” But if it does enjoy a resurgence, the past week could be the moment its fortunes began to turn around.
