Eastern Europe is paying for the EU’s climate revolution

Europe’s energy crisis shows little sign of abating. After Germany this week withheld approval for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline over fears that it could be used as a political weapon by Russia, benchmark gas prices spiked by 10 per cent across Europe, coming close to all-time highs set earlier this autumn.

Some energy traders had hoped that the first supplies arriving through the controversial pipeline would help alleviate pressures this winter, but on Thursday the president of Germany’s energy regulator played this down, warning that approval for Nord Stream 2 cannot be expected in the first half of next year. And as the prospect of relief from the East fades, cracks are starting to emerge in the EU’s wider energy policy, with rumblings of discontent growing in central and eastern Europe about the role which the EU’s climate strategy might be playing in the dire state of affairs.

The Polish parliament last Thursday passed a resolution saying the EU’s energy system ‘has become a huge threat to Poland following the adoption and implementation of new climate policy instruments.’