Soaring oil and gas prices in Europe resulting from the ongoing war involving Iran will not return to normal levels any time soon, even if peace is declared tomorrow, the European Union\u2019s energy commissioner warned on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Dan J\u00f8rgensen said that although there are no immediate shortages of oil and gas supplies across the 27-member bloc, there is pressure on diesel and jet fuel supplies, as well as \u201cincreasing constraints\u201d in global gas markets, which are driving up electricity prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I find extremely important is to state as clearly as I can that even if that peace is here tomorrow, still we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future,\u201d J\u00f8rgensen told a news conference after a meeting of EU energy ministers.<\/p>\n
He said the EU\u2019s executive arm is preparing a range of measures to help families and businesses cope with the sharp rise in oil prices, which has led to increases of about 70% for gas and 60% for oil in Europe. Since the start of the war, the EU\u2019s bill for imported fossil fuels has risen by \u20ac14bn, according to J\u00f8rgensen.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
He added that closely coordinated action among all EU member states is necessary to \u201cavoid fragmented national responses and disruptive signals to the markets\u201d.<\/p>\n
The \u201ctoolbox\u201d of measures under preparation will be unveiled \u201cquite soon\u201d and will include ways to make it easier for states to decouple gas prices from electricity prices. A cut in electricity taxes, as suggested by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is also being considered.<\/p>\n
J\u00f8rgensen said that although he does not expect a repeat of the 2022 natural gas crisis, during which companies made large profits from surging prices, a one-off \u201cwindfall tax\u201d on such companies \u201cremains a possibility\u201d.<\/p>\n
There are now \u201cgood opportunities\u201d for member states to provide financial support to vulnerable groups and industries under \u201cextraordinary stress\u201d, and the Commission will make \u201cthese possibilities even simpler and broader\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
J\u00f8rgensen also encouraged EU countries to consider the International Energy Agency\u2019s 10-point plan, which includes working from home, reducing motorway speeds, promoting public transport and increasing car-sharing.<\/p>\n
He said the EU remains committed to its ban on Russian gas purchases, aimed at reducing dependence on Russian supplies and cutting off funding for Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine. Reliance on Russian gas has fallen from 45% before the war to 10% now, and is expected to drop to zero once imports from alternative suppliers increase, particularly from the United States. The EU is also exploring new energy sources from Azerbaijan, Algeria and Canada<\/a>, as well as smaller producers worldwide.<\/p>\n The commissioner warned that the EU must never \u201crepeat the mistakes of the past by allowing Putin to weaponise energy against us and blackmail member states\u201d. He added that \u201cit would be totally unacceptable\u201d for the EU to continue buying energy that would \u201cindirectly help finance the terrible war that Putin is waging in Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soaring oil and gas prices in Europe resulting from the ongoing war involving Iran will not return to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[506,551,39,1968,40,3302,2312,3303,3300,3301],"class_list":["post-3096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-dan-jorgensen","tag-electricity-prices","tag-eu","tag-eu-member-states","tag-european-union","tag-global-gas-markets","tag-jorgensen","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-oil-and-gas-prices","tag-ongoing-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}