Climate Politics
Europe Racks Up $700 Billion Energy Tab as Budgets Strain
- Germany dominates energy spending spree, faces EU leaders’ ire
- Figures highlight EU countries’ different budgetary headroom
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European Union governments have pledged more than 550 billion euros ($536 billion) to protect citizens and businesses from soaring energy costs over the past year, highlighting the enormous fiscal burden the bloc’s leaders face as they jostle over how to pay for it.
That figure climbs to 710 billion euros when support for utilities via loans, bailouts and nationalizations are taken into account, according to the think tank Bruegel. That’s just 90 billion euros shy of the EU’s landmark borrowing program to help the region recover from the two-year Covid pandemic.