EU Shuts Domestic Energy While Leaders Confess Fossil Fuel Dependence
European leaders warn of devastating energy supply disruptions even as Brussels permanently seals Europe's largest gas field and maintains its nuclear phase-outs, exposing the self-inflicted nature of the continent's energy crisis.
In a single week in April, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz is "greatly damaging" to the EU economy, even as Brussels completed the permanent closure of Europe's largest domestic gas field and maintained its nuclear phase-outs. The contradiction defines Europe's energy crisis: its leaders openly confess civilization cannot function without fossil fuels while systematically dismantling Europe's capacity to produce them.
Von der Leyen called the Strait closure "greatly damaging" on April 13, as Europe's fossil fuel import bill rose over €22 billion in 44 days since the Iran conflict began. EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said the blockade is "really dangerous" for energy supplies to Asia. Their statements acknowledge what EU policy refuses to accept: modern civilization runs on hydrocarbons.
While begging Middle Eastern energy exporters for fuel, EU institutions have permanently sealed the Groningen gas field, maintain shale fracking bans, and complete nuclear phase-outs. The Netherlands sealed Groningen by law on April 19, 2024, pouring concrete into wells that once supplied gas to much of Western Europe. This policy-driven dismantling creates the very dependency Brussels now fears.
The human cost is immediate and staggering. Some 41 to 47 million Europeans now struggle to afford adequate home heating, representing nine to 10 percent of the population. Turkey alone counts 12.9 million people unable to warm their homes. Spain has 8.5 million. France, despite its nuclear fleet, has 8.1 million.
The economic damage is structural and massive. EU industrial electricity prices average €0.199 per kilowatt-hour, nearly triple the United States' €0.075 and more than double China's €0.082, according to Eurostat data cited by BusinessEurope. EU industrial gas prices run two to four times higher than U.S. levels, according to the European Commission's 6th Report on Energy Prices and Costs. The EU spent €336.7 billion on fossil fuel imports in 2025 alone, with cumulative extra costs above pre-crisis baselines reaching €930 billion between 2021 and 2024.
The France-Germany comparison provides definitive proof that energy policy dictates economic outcomes. France generates approximately 70 percent of electricity from nuclear power at 20 to 30 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. Germany produces zero percent from nuclear at roughly 300 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. German households pay about 40 percent more than French households for electricity.
The scale of Germany's failure is staggering. The country's Energiewende — its energy transition to wind, solar, and other renewables — carried projected costs of up to €1 trillion, yet ended up with higher CO2 emissions and substantially higher household electricity prices than its neighbor.
According to a PwC analysis published in March 2025, if Germany had maintained its nuclear fleet, 94 percent of 2024 power generation would have been emission-free and average prices 23 percent lower. Instead, Germany completed its nuclear phase-out in April 2023 after pouring hundreds of billions into wind and solar, then watched its energy-intensive industrial output fall 11 to 17 percent below pre-pandemic levels, according to a PwC analysis.
"European energy prices are structurally much higher than in the US, a direct consequence of policy choices," stated Evert Doornhof of the Clintel Foundation in analysis published April 26. "This is not bad luck, but policy."
The policy contradiction exposes what Gatestone Institute author Drieu Godefridi calls Europe's "energy suicide." In his April 26 analysis, Godefridi argues the Green Deal is "presented as environmental imperatives, but their effect is the deliberate weakening of Europe's industrial base and energy security." He states Europe "does not lack energy resources. It lacks the political will to use them."
Von der Leyen herself admitted the nuclear mistake on March 11, stating: "In 1990 one-third of Europe's electricity came from nuclear, today it is only close to 15 percent. This reduction in the share of nuclear was a choice, I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power."
Yet even as she calls the phase-out a strategic mistake, von der Leyen maintains the EU Emissions Trading System — a carbon trading scheme that inflates energy prices by roughly twice the total U.S. natural gas price, according to Brussels Report data. She simultaneously pushes accelerated renewables deployment while acknowledging fossil fuels will remain the most expensive option for years.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered his own concession to policy failure. On March 11, he ruled out returning to nuclear power. Then on March 27, he admitted: "We may need to keep our coal plants online for longer." Even Germany's conservative chancellor is forced to concede that the Energiewende is failing, resorting to coal — the dirtiest energy source — to keep the lights on.
The International Energy Agency warns current oil supply losses from the Strait of Hormuz closure "exceed the combined impact of 1973 and 1979 oil crises," with gas losses nearly double those from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Yet even as Brussels acknowledges this crisis, it pursues policies guaranteeing long-term dependency. The EU pledged to purchase $750 billion worth of energy products from the United States by 2028 — a direct transfer of economic sovereignty to American energy companies after Europe chose to destroy its own domestic capacity.
Wind and solar generated 30.1 percent of EU electricity in 2025, surpassing fossil fuels' 29 percent for the first time. Yet the bloc still spent €32 billion on fossil gas for power generation, 16 percent more than 2024. The renewables milestone did not reduce Europe's fossil fuel dependency — it merely proved that intermittent sources cannot replace baseload power without expensive fossil backup.
Some 2,062 experts have signed the World Climate Declaration stating "there is no climate emergency" and "there is no climate crisis that justifies this policy." Multiple fact-checking organizations have noted that not all signatories are climate scientists and the declaration represents a minority scientific view. The hard economic data, however, requires no qualification.
"The Strait of Hormuz will soon fully reopen, but Europe's path to energy independence is being deliberately and self-destructively sealed shut," Godefridi concludes. The GDP growth gap between the United States and European Union continues to widen, driven in part by Europe's policy-made energy crisis.