Europe must take immediate action to deal with the energy crisis; otherwise, it will face rigorous economic consequences, according to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
“A few weeks like this and the European economy will just go into a full stop,” he told Bloomberg on Thursday. “Recovering from that is going to be much more complicated than intervening in gas markets today. The risk of that is de-industrialization and severe risk of fundamental social unrest.”
In his opinion, the EU could benefit from imposing a price cap on gas trading, and it should be implemented as soon as possible to avoid catastrophe.
De Croo’s idea comes as Europe’s top energy ministers convene in Brussels on Friday to discuss potential government responses in the energy market.
De Croo said he sees no option but to impose such market interventions.
“What you are seeing today is a massive drainage of prosperity out of the European Union,” he said.
Since Russia started cutting supplies to Europe, natural gas prices have skyrockted dramatically, and are trading at 10 times the price of the five-year average, according to Bloomberg data.
