But for a handful of hardcore survivalists, an announcement caught most the EU’s onlookers off-guard. Earlier this month the (now former) defence minister Klaudia Tanner alerted her Austrian compatriots to the potential need to stockpile food if blackouts arise.

Others have been hedging their bets for a while, too. In May Spanish minister Teresa Ribera penned a letter to Frans Timmermans (European Commissioner and VP for the Green Deal) pleading for bloc-wide legislation to prevent power outages from disproportionately hitting the least well off. These were merely the opening salvos in what has since shaped up to be a full-fledged energy crisis in Europe, with a skyrocketing surge in electricity prices across the continent that’s hampering the prospects of a rapid post-Covid economic recovery.

Bit of a mess

Aitor Hernández-Morales (of Politico Europe) and Thomas Pellerin-Carlin (of the Jacques Delors Institute) chalk up this price surge to three distinct factors. First, the post-Covid recovery has boosted demand globally, with economies trying to make up for their Covid losses. An increase in demand in energy was compounded by a worldwide spike (ongoing since the pre-pandemic days) in the price of natural gas, which accounts for a whole quarter of the EU’s energy mix. Oil accounts for a third, and nuclear and coal for 10 per cent each. The EU’s dependence on fossil fuels, …