As Brussels talks gas cap, Europeans work up a sweat
By Euronews Brussels bureau
In Europe’s energy crisis, there’s no rest for the weary.
Although prices have stabilised since the all-time records seen in August, they remain exceptionally and stubbornly high. After months of skyrocketing bills, the financial burden is becoming unbearable for households and companies, leaving many on the verge of bankruptcy.
How long can this go on? Our reporter Hans von der Brelie set out to find out.
Travelling to Delft, in the Netherlands, Hans met with Jack Van Roon, the owner of a local bakery who for months struggled to cope with surging energy bills – until he no longer could.
“Last day at the bakery?” Hans asked.
“I feel disappointed, sad. What can I say? There is not much to say,” Jack replied. “I will have to go on. That’s life. Yeah, that’s what it is.”
Gas prices got so out of control, Jack said, that sustaining a small business became impossible. With an expected bill of €12,000 in November, Jack was forced to shut down his bakery, which first opened in 1928, when bread was still delivered by horse carriage.
“At a certain point, you can’t keep up anymore,” Jack told Hans. “I feel beaten, dejected… It’s hard.”
In Romania, a similar picture emerges. The government has launched a scheme to help struggling companies pay their electricity bills, which are heavily influenced by gas prices. But the programme has fixed thresholds and many businesses have been excluded.
This is the case for Cristinel and Cristina Constanda, a married couple working at the Oltina Bakery, in the city of Urlați. The financial woes from their business have pushed them to cut down on personal expenses, leading to painful sacrifices.
“We have not turned on the gas central heating yet. It’s very expensive and we can't afford it. We’re going to try to get by without heating for a while,” Cristinel told Hans. “Bills, food, clothes, we can’t afford holidays, we can’t afford anything.”
Cristina agreed with her husband: “This year, we have not been to the seaside. Last year, we went to Bulgaria for 10 days. This year, we couldn’t afford it.”
From Romania, Hans travelled to Italy, where the smell of fresh bread lingered on the streets.
Like many other EU countries, Italy is beset by double-digit inflation, which dramatically jumped from 9.4% in September to 12.8% in October. While energy is the main driver behind the upward trend, inflation has become broad-based, spilling onto food, services and industrial goods.
Forno Campo de’ Fiori, the world-famous bakery in central Rome, exemplifies the quandary.
“From one year to the next, our monthly gas bill rose from €1,200 to €5,500 or almost €6,000 per month – and the electricity bill increased from €1,500 to €5,700,” Fabrizio Roscioli, the bakery’s owner, told Hans.
“At this moment, the company must shoulder a monthly bill for light and gas of about €12,000. If we were to pass this on completely to the customers, the bread would probably be worth as much as gold.”
While those like Fabrizio, Cristinel, Cristina and Jack juggle their daily work with the oppressive weight of energy bills, talks in Brussels around an EU-wide cap on gas prices move forward, albeit with caveats.
An outline unveiled this week by the European Commission offered more details on how the unprecedented will work in practice: mainly, as a safety ceiling to contain excessive volatility and rampant speculation.
But the cap is ridden with risks and unknowns, not least potential dangers to security of supply. There is concern that LGN producers could easily re-route their valuable cargoes and sell them in other regions where no price cap exists, putting the entire bloc on an even tighter spot.
As winter nears, a new question comes to the fore: Amidst the energy crisis, what should the EU’s number one priority be? Affordable prices or secure supplies?
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