The federal government is preparing to announce a national gas emergency plan in a few days.
This second phase of emergency regulation could immediately and significantly increase the price of natural gas for all consumers.
Suppliers should "assume" that the alert level will be declared within five to ten days.
The condition for declaring the emergency level of the emergency plan is "serious reduction in gas flows" or "prolonged technical failure of important infrastructures". "High risk of long-term supply shortages" can also trigger a level of anxiety.
These criteria appear to be met. The alert level is followed only by the "alarm level", which is declared when there are physical bottlenecks in Germany.