The government will put the natural gas outline agreement up for discussion in the Knesset today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided. However, the Knesset will not vote on the matter today and it is unclear whether it will eventually vote on the issue at all.
Last week Minister of the Economy Aryeh Deri said that he would probably not sign off on Clause 52 to bypass outgoing Israel Antitrust Authority commissioner David Gilo even if the Knesset approved the agreement. Instead, Deri is asking to wait for the appointment of Gilo's successor who would then study the gas agreement and decide whether to approve an exemption for the gas developers from cartel arrangements.
Therefore, there is no apparent need to present the agreement to the Knesset, and Netanyahu initially decided not to do so. However, Netanyahu has changed his mind to keep the option of putting the gas agreement to a Knesset vote. The significance is that the government will be able to convene the Knesset during recess at 48-hours' notice in order to vote on the matter.
In the coming days, Netanyahu will probably try to apply pressure on Der into sign Clause 52, or alternatively he might persuade Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman to support transferring Deri's authorities to the cabinet. Liberman has declared in the past that he supports the gas outline agreement but has refused to support transferring Deri's authorities, claiming that his party is not the "coalition's babysitter."
If Netanyahu fails in both these options, he will be compelled to wait until the new Antitrust Authority commissioner takes office, in which case approving the agreement could take months. A senior person in the gas sector told "Globes" that the significance of the situation is, "It's not that the agreement is being delayed, there simply won't be an agreement."
The source said, "No antitrust commissioner will agree to sign an exemption from cartel arrangements when it is clear that a cartel is involved."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 2, 2015
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