Impossible quests should be the stuff of legends and love songs, not energy policy. Yet EU bureaucrats are seeking an acre of land between salt water and seastrand. They are tasked with finding a way to cap gas prices so as to reduce the bill for consumers — as Southern European countries would like — while not reducing the amount of gas supplied to Europe, as Germany and the Netherlands fear.

So far, they are failing. The last proposal managed to be ineffective and potentially damaging.

The EU previously suggested two conditions for a gas price cap. Month-ahead prices must stay above €275 a megawatt hour for two successive weeks and the reference price (at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands) must be €58/MWh above that of liquefied natural gas for 10 days.