Europe shuns energy curbs despite crisis, favoring subsidies over conservation

When oil prices spiked in the early 1970s, the shock forced automakers to rethink their entire approach to fuel efficiency. A similar jolt arrived in 2022 when Russia cut gas supplies to Europe, sending prices to historic highs and prompting the EU and International Energy Agency to issue guidelines urging people to work from home, reduce driving speeds, and conserve wherever possible. Today, as a new energy crisis unfolds from conflict in the Middle East, countries across the globe—from Australia to Egypt—are dusting off those same conservation playbooks. Europe, however, is taking a different path.

The continent's response to the current energy shock reveals a striking reluctance to ask citizens to use less. Of more than 180 policy measures European governments have deployed, fewer than 10 are aimed at reducing consumption, and most of those are voluntary. Instead, governments have committed nearly 14 billion euros to subsidies and tax cuts—blanket measures like fuel tax reductions in Germany, Spain, and Poland that shield households from rising bills without asking them to change behavior. The contrast is telling. In 2022, when the crisis felt more acute, the EU's own recommendations included organizing car-free days and encouraging remote work. Last week, when the Commission published updated guidance, those consumption-reduction measures had vanished from the final draft.

Why the retreat? The current shock, while real, has not yet reached the severity of 2022. Natural gas prices remain well below their earlier peaks, and there are no fuel shortages. But politics plays a larger role. Europe carries the memory of the 2018 yellow vest protests in France, when a proposed diesel tax hike sparked weeks of unrest. In Britain, right-wing politicians have branded local emissions schemes as anti-car crusades. Demand-reduction measures are inherently unpopular—they ask people to do without—and elected officials are reluctant to spend political capital on them. As Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, head of the Paris-based Jacques Delors Energy Centre, explained, policymakers prefer to hand out money rather than impose restrictions. "Demand-reduction measures are kind of unpopular by essence," he said.

Poland's Energy Minister Milosz Motyka articulated the fear plainly: hard restrictions could trigger panic, hoarding, and supply disruption. Instead, he said, the government was making "gentle suggestions" and hoping drivers would adapt on their own. The approach reflects a real tension in European culture—many people bristle at being told to conserve, preferring to choose conservation voluntarily. Yet opinion research shows the public is capable of understanding the case for action. Before the current crisis, French drivers surveyed said they accepted the logic of driving slower to save fuel. The problem is that when speed limits are actually enforced, they become unpopular. As Toby Harris, chair of Britain's National Preparedness Commission, put it, without public understanding of the scale of the crisis, messages about frugality simply do not land.

There is evidence that Europeans can and will conserve when mobilized. An Irish energy campaign in 2022 was linked to a 12 percent drop in residential electricity use. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a poll found that 90 percent of Germans were consciously saving heating energy. Yet governments are not attempting to recreate that momentum now. Some analysts argue this is a missed opportunity. Michael Bloss, a German Green MEP, told Reuters that reducing demand is the most direct way to lower prices and fill gas storage over the summer. "Most of the policies that we are seeing are actually increasing demand," he said. Enrico Giovannini, a former Italian infrastructure minister, acknowledged that travel and work restrictions carry economic costs and should be a last resort. But he added a caveat: if the conflict persists, more drastic measures will almost certainly follow.

For now, Europe is betting that subsidies and tax cuts will suffice, that the crisis will not deepen, and that the political cost of asking people to use less energy is simply too high. Whether that calculation holds depends on what happens next in the Middle East—and whether the continent's leaders will eventually conclude that the price of inaction has become steeper than the price of asking their citizens to do with less.