(Bloomberg) -- European Union nations decided to postpone a decision on key details of a price cap on natural gas after a group of nations led by Germany called for more scrutiny of the controversial measure.

Nations agreed on 90-95% of what was discussed on Tuesday but the big decisions will be left until another gathering on Dec. 19, according to Germany’s economy minister Robert Habeck.

“There will be only one open issue for discussion on Monday and this is the price level,” Czech industry minister Jozef Sikela told reporters. “We knew that reaching an agreement was never going to be easy.”

After months of wrangling, nations are still split on how to tackle the crisis. The European Commission has struggled to come up with measures all member states can get behind. The easier options - like voluntary demand curbs and windfall taxes - have already been used up. But any kind of cap has proved too difficult to agree on so far. Leaders are due to continue discussions at a summit starting on Thursday.

The deadlock has been holding back other key emergency measures that have been agreed upon in principle — like faster permitting and joint purchases. 

The Commission’s original cap of €275 ($290) a megawatt hour could be lowered to €160-€220, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. That’s still a good way above current benchmark levels of about €137 a megawatt-hour.

The aim of the cap is to help prevent costs from spiking out of control as happened in the summer when prices jumped to a record €345. Surging energy costs are causing double digit inflation in countries across the region including the bloc’s biggest economy Germany. With limited supplies of pipeline gas from Russia to help refill storage next year, policy makers and analysts are expecting high prices to persist next year.

The plan to intervene in the market, unveiled by the European Commission last month, has caused a deep rift among member states. Countries led by Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark were calling for a cautious approach, while a group including Belgium, Italy, Greece and Poland were pushing for a more aggressive tool.

When talks resume on Monday, the Czech presidency will keep most elements in the proposal unchanged, including no inclusion of over-the-counter deals and an automatic deactivation of the mechanism.

“We were missing the readiness to take a certain risk,” Sikela said. “This is an extremely fragile balance and this is the first time we try to intervene in global markets.”

--With assistance from Katharina Rosskopf and Iain Rogers.

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