After Germany faced criticism for going its own way with huge subsidies that its peers could never afford, two top European Union officials called for joint borrowing to help the 27 nation bloc navigate the energy crunch together.
Russia slashed gas supplies to the EU after Western sanctions over Moscow's war against Ukraine - is threatening to cause a recession in Europe as it recovers from the COVID 19 epidemic.
The EU executive arm is set to ask the bloc's executive arm to work out how to deal with soaring inflation through a cap on gas prices, funded by joint borrowing.
Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands oppose a price cap, citing concerns over security of supply. They are also against joint borrowing - an echo of the EU's long-standing divisions that have come to surface again over the twin energy and inflation crises.
Germany has raised eyebrows by a massive €200 billion US $198 billion support package for businesses and households, a far cry from the aid announcements of other major EU economies - €67 billion in the case of France and €68 billion in Italy.
It's good to look more at German state aid while talking about the EU price cap. One EU diplomat said the cap was either the cap or something sensible on joint gas purchases or shared financing.
The head of the EU executive, Ursula von der Leyen, warned last week that emergency measures must not damage the bloc's single market and that it was important to keep a level playing field.
On Tuesday, two of her team -- European Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton -- went further, saying new joint borrowing could follow the model of shared debt issued in the Pandemic to subsidise jobs.
The two wrote an op-ed in the Irish Times that it is more important than ever that we avoid fragmenting the internal market, setting up a race for subsidies and questioning the principles of solidarity and unity that underpin our European project.
There is only one possible response: that of a Europe of solidarity. We need to think about mutualised tools at the European level to overcome the fault lines caused by the different margins of manoeuvre of national budgets. As a model, they pointed to the bloc's Pandemic Jobs Scheme SURE, under which the EU borrowed 100 billion euros at very low cost and loaned it out for free to governments to save jobs.
France sided with that, saying a shared EU response was needed. Germany said that it would not help the long run of competitiveness or financial sustainability, because of the fact that it was opposing sharing debt.
Denmark and the Netherlands are strongly opposed to joint debt, as they were during the 2020 negotiations on EU stimulus to lift economies from the COVID 19 malaise.
Another EU diplomat said joint debt was not needed ahead of national EU leaders' talks on the matter in Prague on Thursday and Friday.