Tax cuts, handouts and blind hope: Europe finds few tools to fight the coming energy crisis – POLITICO

So did Jørgensen’s call last week for consumers to reduce their fuel consumption; National capitals would prefer to wait for central directives from the Commission, according to a European energy official familiar with member countries’ deliberations who, like others cited in this article, was granted anonymity to speak openly.

O’Brien and Jørgensen also warned that it was important that these measures were targeted and temporary to avoid uneven enforcement that could distort the EU’s single market.

Desperation over energy costs lent an experimental air to the closed-door discussions held in the imposing Dublin Castle in the city center. The officials discussed reducing electricity taxes, putting surplus energy from electric vehicles back into national grids and listened attentively when Ukrainian officials, invited alongside British, Norwegian and Moldovan delegates, proposed storing Europe’s natural gas reserves on behalf of the bloc in its vast underground caverns, Moldovan Energy Minister Dorin Junghietu told POLITICO.

Junghietu added that Europe needed “quick and tangible results” to reduce costs. He said the best way to do this was to make it easier and cheaper to invest in domestic renewable energy like solar power, but acknowledged this would be difficult in countries where deeper structural changes to grids are needed.

The EU’s impotence was made clear when officials were pressed on whether the EU was ready for a possible US ban on fuel exports, after Trump appeared to support the idea earlier this month. Ministers widely expressed hope that such a ban would not happen, while urging Washington to rethink.

Jørgensen told reporters he had sent a “clear signal” to his US counterpart, Chris Wright, that the US should stand down in the face of the threat, and said he was happy to see Wright publicly agree that this would not work. O’Brien said conversations with U.S. officials during a visit to Washington and New York last week reassured him that the project would not move forward.