Brussels is acting too slowly to prevent the EU’s energy crisis worsening next year, the Czech energy minister has warned, as he seeks to break the deadlock over a gas price cap designed to ease pressure on industry and consumers.

Jozef Síkela, whose country holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, praised action taken so far to slash gas demand and build new energy infrastructure following Russia’s cuts to European supplies but told the Financial Times in an interview that the bloc must “keep going” or risk economic damage that would undermine public support for Ukraine.

“We need to keep the social peace. We need to keep the economies up and running. We need to ensure that [Russian president Vladimir] Putin will not be able to basically create social unrest or insolvencies or the recession of the European economy because whatever we have invested so far [in helping Ukraine] will be gone,” he said.