World News for Students of English

17-02-2023 07:00

European countries have spent nearly 850 billion dollars to fight soaring energy costs.

A report by a Brussels-based think tank said that EU countries had allocated around 727 billion dollars in energy crisis spending, while Britain had allocated about 110 billion and Norway nearly 9 billion dollars. Germany spent the most, at 288 billion dollars.

When Europe fell out with Russia last year, Russia cut off most of its gas deliveries to the continent, in retaliation for sanctions that the EU imposed on Russia due to the war in Ukraine. That sent gas costs soaring, and governments were forced to look for ways to protect consumers from enormous energy bills.

According to the report, spending on the energy crisis was now similar to the EU’s Recovery Fund for the global health crisis that hit about 800 billion dollars. Europe tries to compete with subsidies in the United States and China, and countries are debating proposals to loosen state aid rules for green tech projects.

Difficult words: think tank (a body of experts who provide advice and ideas on specific political or economic problems), retaliation (revenge), subsidy (payment by a government to a company as a form of help or assistance).

You can watch the video news lower on this page.