{"id":660993,"date":"2026-10-29T21:10:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660993\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T21:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:10:24","slug":"eu-governments-helpless-as-energy-prices-soar-to-four-year-highs-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660993\/","title":{"rendered":"EU governments helpless as energy prices soar to four-year highs \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Demand reduction \u201chas an impact on industry, it has an impact on business, and in a difficult situation, it could be the way to do that. But it does not \u2026 solve the long-term,\u201d Polish Secretary of State for Energy Wojciech Wrochna told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>High prices \u201cwill regulate demand by itself,\u201d Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Fossil fuel subsidies <\/p>\n<p>Such was the opposition to demand reduction measures on Thursday, J\u00f8rgensen \u2014 who was at the summit warning of a &#8220;difficult&#8221; winter of soaring fuel prices ahead \u2014 gave up even proposing it, focusing instead on subsidies. He reluctantly accepted that such subsidies could include fossil fuels as well as clean alternatives, but urged that they be &#8220;targeted and temporary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since the war started, governments have paid \u20ac18 billion for tax relief on fossil fuel products, including a controversial move by Rome earlier this month to reduce the impact of gas prices on electricity costs.<\/p>\n<p>European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned national leaders against this tendency, urging them at a summit this month to keep policies temporary and targeted to avoid inadvertently increasing fossil fuel demand and distorting the EU single market, according to two EU diplomats familiar with her comments.<\/p>\n<p>That remains a point of contention among EU leaders, with some, including Greece, calling for greater fiscal space to increase energy subsidies while others warn of the dangers of subsidizing fossil fuels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demand reduction \u201chas an impact on industry, it has an impact on business, and in a difficult situation,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,4401,5866,136414,99984,184,4412,1945,1435,27587,4414,297478,4419,2226,3798,170,916,18016,85,2069,46,2971,18167,47,28757,5839,4436,4440,145,9688,270,1032,4447,2201,13580],"class_list":["post-660993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-companies","tag-crisis","tag-dan-jorgensen","tag-diesel","tag-economy","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-energy-prices","tag-eu-treaties","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-france","tag-fuels","tag-germany","tag-greece","tag-heat-pumps","tag-il","tag-industry","tag-israel","tag-italy","tag-luxembourg","tag-middle-east","tag-natural-gas","tag-oil","tag-poland","tag-single-market","tag-space","tag-supply-chains","tag-tax","tag-united-states","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-war","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}