Energy prices in the EU are rising sharply, and 50 million Europeans are unable to heat their homes adequately, says the EU’s Energy Commissioner, Dan Jørgensen.
The supply crisis affects gas, oil and refined oil products such as diesel, said Jørgensen on Wednesday in connection with the European Commission’s dialogue with oil refineries aimed at increasing production.
Europe faces a difficult winter.
We must ensure reliable fuel supplies for our citizens, businesses and defence.
And we must ensure that these supplies are affordable.
Today we began our dialogue with European refineries.
Looking at short-term and long-term.Press point ↓ pic.twitter.com/suM6zfkYfn
— Dan Jørgensen (@DanJoergensen) 28 October 2026
Jørgensen himself posted his speech on X, where he is also facing criticism for his conduct in office.
On Thursday, EU energy ministers discussed how to reduce household energy bills and strengthen security of supply ahead of the winter heating season, reports Reuters.
Gas storage facilities in the EU are 75 per cent full, compared with 83 per cent last year, and the price of gas has exceeded 100 euros/MWh. But this time there is also a shortage of diesel.
EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen said nearly 50 million Europeans cannot adequately heat their homes and warned that number could rise as the bloc heads into what he called an even worse energy crisis than the one it faced four years ago.
Nevertheless, Jorgensen urges against providing ‘excessive’ subsidies for fossil fuels.
The Commissioner portrays the situation as better than before one moment, but worse the next:
“We’re better situated at dealing with this crisis than we were in 2022 because we’ve reduced our gas consumption. We use 18% less gas now than we did in 2022. Also, we’ve diversified. We used to get 45% of our gas from Russia … now we get gas from different suppliers around the planet,” Jorgensen told reporters ahead of the ministerial meeting in Luxembourg.“But on the other hand, this crisis is also worse because this is also oil and oil products. We’ve even seen situations where there was a threat to our security of supply last summer on jet fuel. We’re not there now.”
Both the war in Ukraine and the unrest in the Middle East are reducing energy supplies, particularly to Europe – which is nowhere near as self-sufficient as the US, and which, unlike China, will stop importing energy from Russia.
