00:00After two months of war in Iran, Europe is feeling the shock.
00:03Energy prices continue to soar, but the European Commission is stepping in
00:07with emergency energy vouchers and a new energy watchdog.
00:11For the details, I'm joined in the studio by our correspondent, Angela Skujins.
00:15Great to have you, Angela.
00:16You spoke to the Energy Commissioner yesterday.
00:19Tell us more about the measures that he outlined.
00:22Good morning, Marid.
00:23So there's no ambiguity regarding the scale of the problem.
00:26The European Commission has stated that over the two months that this conflict
00:30has raged on in the Middle East, it has cost Europeans an extra €24 billion.
00:36This amounts to an eye-watering €5 million per day.
00:40In response to this, the European Commission came out on Wednesday
00:43with a suite of measures aimed to support Europeans at the diesel pump
00:48as well as at the bank.
00:49This includes a new observatory to be set up to monitor how energy is dispersed
00:54within the EU, as well as energy vouchers for people to buy more energy-efficient
00:59heat pumps, tax incentives for people to also buy solar panels.
01:04However, critics have blasted this, stating that it doesn't really have
01:08the financial teeth to support Europeans' most vulnerable.
01:12It also included no mention of that one-day working-from-home policy
01:16as well as taxing windfall profits.
01:20Euronews did ask the European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jorgensen, about this.
01:25He stated that it's incumbent on national governments to establish
01:28those windfall tax profits.
01:31However, he did warn that Europeans should expect more pain.
01:35Even in a best-case scenario, I do have to be quite blunt and say that we are looking into
01:42some very difficult months and even years, because even if there's a peace tomorrow,
01:46to rebuild the gas infrastructure, for instance, in Qatar will take maybe years.
01:51So prices will not stabilize at the level they were before this crisis.
01:56And Angela, you also had the opportunity to ask the Commissioner about the situation
01:59in Ukraine after persistent attacks on its energy sites.
02:03Yes, of course.
02:04While we had him, we thought we would ask about the Druzhba oil pipeline too.
02:09There's that €90 billion loan for Ukraine attached to this major development.
02:14He stated that it's imperative Ukraine gets this cash.
02:18We know that two-thirds of this will be used to continue repelling Russian aggression,
02:22while one-third will be used to prop up the budget and hopefully make some repairs
02:27to that pummeled energy infrastructure.
02:30Working with Ukraine on helping to rebuild the energy sector is quite heartbreaking work,
02:39because the Russians are brutally bombing the energy infrastructure of Ukraine.
02:44They've done so through the very cold winter.
02:47People have been freezing.
02:49People have been without electricity.
02:50And obviously, it's an expensive endeavor to rebuild.
02:55And we are very eager to help as much as we can, as fast as we can.
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