EU ‘must contain energy prices’ or risk losing industry

Europe must get a grip on energy prices to protect growth and stop its industry from fleeing abroad, according to two top lawmakers.

The region must reduce the cost gap with the US, where a shale-gas revolution has slashed prices, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told a conference in Berlin via a video link from Brussels.

German companies and consumers are shouldering costs of as much as €24 billion ($32bn) a year for clean-energy aid, the country’s economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said. Europe’s biggest economy has reached “the limit” with renewables subsidies and must contain power prices or risk “deindustrialisation.”