BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union nations have spent over an extra 100 billion euros ($113.5 billion) on energy imports since the outbreak of the Iran war, pushing politicians to seek alternatives to fossil fuels as prices skyrocket.
Consumers in some European countries pay nearly 50% more at the pump, equivalent to more than $11 a gallon, following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil
passed in peacetime.
“Times are serious,” said EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen during a gathering in Dublin of energy ministers from across the 27-nation bloc. Despite the additional money spent, the members haven't received "one extra molecule of gas or oil.”
Jørgensen said the ministers would discuss plans to accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to electricity and expand electrical infrastructure across the bloc, which became highly dependent on the U.S. for direct energy imports after ending its historic reliance on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Europe is one of the most exposed regions — if not the most exposed one — when it comes to diesel because Europe imports a huge amount of diesel and we are entering the harsh season, the winter season,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said. About 50% of its diesel supply comes directly from the U.S.
Republicans in key U.S. states have called for a ban on diesel exports to bolster domestic supply ahead of crucial midterm elections, casting some doubt on President Donald Trump’s 2025 deal to sell $750 billion worth of energy to the EU.
Ireland's minister for climate, energy and the environment, Darragh O’Brien, said the ban is “unlikely” because it would harm economies on both sides of the Atlantic, but the EU must prepare for the worst.
“We have to be guarded. We can’t be complacent," O'Brien said.
Jørgensen said he had sent “a very clear signal” to U.S. authorities to scrap the ban while calling on EU ministers to wean the bloc off of outside energy whose supply can be rocked by war and politics.
“This, of course, shows us just how bad it is for us to be dependent, just how unsustainable it is for us to be dependent on energy sources from other places in the world,” Jørgensen said. “We need to get out of that dependency. We need to replace the fossil fuels, the imported, polluting, expensive molecules with homegrown energy: green electrons.”
Sari Multala, the Finnish environment minister, pointed to her country as an example of energy independence.
The rising concern about energy prices as winter approaches "creates a lot of pressure for us politicians to try to help our citizens to cope with the situation,” she said.
Nuclear reactors, turbines, peat bogs, and hydropower dams provide 95% of Finland's electricity, she said, which "creates very reasonable prices for electricity.”
