European gas prices rose above €100 per megawatt-hour on Wednesday for the first time since 2022, and the energy ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday offered little beyond a shared admission that they are out of options. One senior official called the situation "really crisis management." When governments say that, they are telling citizens to brace for a hard winter without a plan that would meaningfully lower what they pay.
The report makes clear that the tools tried over the past year, including renewables schemes, windfall taxes and fuel subsidies, have not contained the anxiety that has spilled into protests across the continent. Governments have spent €18 billion on tax relief for fossil fuel products. That is a large sum to show for a policy that the Commission's own president has warned could increase fossil fuel demand and distort the single market.
The ministers' refusal to ask households to use less energy is understandable politically, but it leaves a gap. Finland's state secretary said he did not want to "limit people" and preferred encouragement and efficiency subsidies for homes and windows. Those are sensible long-term measures, but they will not reduce this winter's bills. Poland's secretary of state conceded that demand reduction could help in a difficult situation, yet the ministers chose to drop the idea entirely. Waiting for high prices to "regulate demand by itself," as Sweden's energy minister put it, is a policy of letting the poorest households absorb the shock.
The opposition to an EU-wide windfall tax is harder to defend. The report notes that Shell, TotalEnergies and Repsol are posting their biggest profits since 2022 while ordinary consumers face rising costs. Rejecting a common levy on those gains, and then arguing that member states lack fiscal room for subsidies, asks citizens to accept hardship while the most profitable companies are left alone.
Europe should use its shared purchasing power, reconsider a targeted and time-limited windfall levy, and make electrification cheaper rather than fighting over who controls tax rules. Member states can keep arguing about treaty limits, but they should agree quickly on the steps that protect households this winter.