The European Commission searches for a gas-price villain

target of Ursula von der Leyen’s state-of-the-union address on September 14th was energy companies. It is wrong, the president of the European Commission said, for them to make such profits “from war and on the back of consumers”. Windfall taxes raising €140bn ($140bn) would follow, she announced. Yet the speech also included a telling sideswipe at a once obscure part of commodity markets: the Dutch Transfer Title Facility (), a gas-trading network. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrust the into the limelight. The network sets Europe’s benchmark price for natural gas—so it is now a measure for the continent’s economic health. With such attention comes criticism. “Our gas market has changed dramatically: from pipeline gas to increasing amounts of liquid natural gas,” Ms von der Leyen said. The has not adapted, she added, and so the commission would start work on a new index.