The European Union (EU) pledged its governments an outline of a measure to tackle excessive natural gas price spikes, in a bid to secure backing for an emergency package to contain an unprecedented energy crisis, Bloomberg reported

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive, is working with member states and is “fully committed to move forward without delay with concrete proposals for an efficient market correction mechanism,” commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said in a joint letter to heads of government. 

“The EU needs to have a mechanism in place that limits episodes of excessive [natural] gas prices such as those that we have known in August,” they wrote.

The issue of limiting natural gas prices has divided EU governments struggling to ease rising energy costs that are fueling inflation and threatening to push the region into a recession amid reduced supplies from Russia.

In a heated debate between the commission and ambassadors from national governments on Friday, a majority of countries demanded a proposal from the EU executive on a natural gas price cap before a November 24 gathering of energy ministers, according to EU diplomats.