Around 50 million Europeans will face serious difficulty paying utility bills this winter and could be forced into a painful choice between heating their homes and buying food, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jorgensen said in an interview with Hungarian outlet 444.hu during a visit to Budapest. He warned that, against the backdrop of persistently high energy prices, energy poverty in Europe risks worsening to critical levels.
“We have almost 50 million people in an average winter in Europe that struggle to pay their bills for heating. If you cannot pay your heating, you basically have to choose between not eating or freezing,” the commissioner said. Jorgensen emphasised that the coming heating season will be extremely difficult because of Europe’s structural vulnerability to imports and instability in global commodity markets. The paradox is that the bloc with a generally high standard of living is suddenly confronting an acute affordability crisis in housing and energy, he added.
Jorgensen also warned that the long‑standing expectation that each generation should be better off than the last is now under threat as an energy crisis compounds problems in the housing sector. He rejected remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar suggesting the EU could resume purchases of cheaper Russian gas after the end of the conflict in Ukraine, saying the bloc must not repeat past mistakes or rely on an energy partnership with Moscow.