By Foo Yun Chee

BERLIN, March 12 (Reuters) - European Union governments may be allowed to grant state aid to energy intensive companies hit by the sharp jump in electricity prices following the surge in oil and gas prices due to the Iran war, Europe's competition chief Teresa Ribera on Thursday said.

"For the moment, we have untapped state aid possibilities that member states can still use to give relief to electricity prices of energy-intensive users," Ribera told a conference organised by the German antitrust authority Bundeskartellamt.

She said the European Commission was also ready to step in with support measures and longer-term plans to help businesses counter the impact of the war, based on previous measures to tackle the effects of the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

These programmes allowed governments to pump in billions of euros to companies.

"We are not there yet but in case it happens, we need to draw from the experience of previous crisis," Ribera said.

Ribera, who earlier this month threatened to temporarily block Meta Platforms META.O from excluding rival AI chatbots on its messaging service WhatsApp, said she was now assessing the U.S. tech company's change of mind.

"Last week, Meta then announced that it would reverse its decision to exclude third party AI chatbots from WhatsApp, but it will start charging a fee. We are now carefully assessing if this policy change has an impact on the need for the Commission to act urgent," she said.

Rivals said the fees are too convoluted and too high and have urged the EU antitrust enforcer to issue an interim measure against Meta.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise Heavens)

((foo.yunchee@thomsonreuters.com; +32 2 585 2866; Reuters Messaging: foo.yunchee.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))