EU urges Europeans to work from home and fly less as Iran war triggers prolonged energy crisis

The European Commission has issued some of its starkest warnings since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, urging Europeans to work from home, drive less, and cut air travel as the bloc faces the prospect of a prolonged energy crisis triggered by the Iran war and the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen delivered the stark message on Tuesday following an extraordinary emergency meeting of all 27 EU energy ministers in Brussels – convened specifically to coordinate a response to what officials now describe as a crisis moving beyond a price problem into a genuine threat to the continent’s energy supply.

His warning carried echoes that were impossible to miss: the last time European governments urged citizens to fundamentally change their daily habits in the name of collective security, it was March 2020.

“We will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future”

The most striking aspect of Jørgensen’s message was its candour about the timeline. Unlike previous energy crises where officials emphasised short-term disruption and rapid recovery, the EU’s energy chief was explicit that the damage will outlast any military resolution.

“Even if peace is here tomorrow, still we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the emergency meeting.

The request from Brussels reflects growing fears that the Iran war is graduating from a price problem to an all-out energy supply crisis, with serious implications for the global economy.

The practical measures Jørgensen urged on member states are drawn directly from the International Energy Agency’s demand-cutting playbook: work from home where possible, reduce highway speed limits by ten kilometres per hour, encourage public transport, introduce alternate private car access arrangements, increase car sharing, and adopt more efficient driving practices. He also specifically called on Europeans to reduce air travel to conserve jet fuel – a commodity under particular pressure given Europe’s heavy reliance on Gulf supply routes.

EU countries may also consider more drastic measures, including fuel rationing and even “car-free Sundays” – a measure last seen during the 1970s energy crisis – to curb oil and gas demand.

Why Europe is so exposed

Understanding the scale of the challenge requires understanding just how dependent European energy markets are on supply routes that now run through an active war zone.

Europe sourced over 40% of its jet fuel and diesel imports from the Persian Gulf before the conflict began. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz – through which approximately 20% of global seaborne oil and liquefied natural gas passes – has severed that supply chain at its most critical point. Alternative routes exist but are limited in capacity and considerably more expensive to operate.

The conflict has driven up the EU’s fossil fuel import bill by around 14 billion euros, while gas prices have risen roughly 70% and oil prices around 60% since the start of the Iran-related crisis. Those increases are feeding directly into electricity prices, household energy bills, and industrial costs across the continent.

Europe now faces its first major energy crisis since cutting off Russian gas and phasing out Russian oil following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Having spent the past four years diversifying away from Russian fossil fuels, the continent now finds itself exposed from a different direction – one that no amount of pipeline rerouting can easily fix.

What Tuesday’s emergency meeting produced

The emergency meeting of EU energy ministers, convened at the request of the Cyprus Presidency, was intended to align national governments on a coordinated response and prevent the kind of fragmented, go-it-alone measures that could destabilise the single market.

Jørgensen told reporters: “We need to avoid fragmented national responses and disruptive signals to the market to avoid worsening supply and demand conditions.”

In practice, Tuesday’s talks ended without concrete proposals on the table – though Jørgensen confirmed the Commission would be presenting a full package of EU-level measures in the near future. The meeting covered potential state aid for households and businesses, accelerated renewable energy deployment, nuclear power’s role in boosting energy security, and support for the Commission’s proposal to expand the use of biofuels as a partial substitute for fossil fuel products.

In a letter sent to EU governments on 30 March, seen by Euronews, Jørgensen also advised member states to postpone non-essential maintenance on oil refineries to keep production running at maximum capacity.

The Cypriot energy minister, Michael Damianos, summarised the meeting’s conclusion plainly: “We need to coordinate ourselves and strengthen our security, protect our competitiveness and safeguard our economic future.”

The renewables acceleration

Running alongside the immediate demand-cutting message is a longer-term argument from Brussels that the Iran war should serve as the decisive catalyst for accelerating Europe’s shift away from fossil fuels entirely.

Jørgensen urged member states to “double down” on building out renewables, saying this “must be the time we finally turn the tide and truly become energy independent.”

The Commission’s argument is now as much about security as it is about climate targets. Analysts and officials say the war’s impact on global fuel markets has strengthened the case for wind, solar, batteries and electrification – domestic energy sources that are simply not exposed to geopolitical choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz.

Although the EU has expanded its renewable generation significantly since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it remains heavily dependent on imported oil and gas – a vulnerability the Iran crisis has exposed with brutal clarity.

What this means for UK households

While the UK is no longer part of the EU and was not represented at Tuesday’s emergency meeting, the energy crisis gripping the continent is not contained by national borders. British households face the same global oil and gas market conditions as their European counterparts.

The UK government, as reported separately in The Daily Britain, is already considering targeted support for the most vulnerable households ahead of the July price cap review, with wholesale gas prices expected to push bills back up after a brief reduction in the current quarter. Keir Starmer has urged the public not to panic buy fuel and has described reopening the Strait of Hormuz as “the single most important thing” his government can do.

Keir Starmer Unpacked: meeting world leaders to protect British interests [YouTube]

The EU’s emergency measures – and the candour with which Jørgensen has described the crisis – suggest that position may need to extend well beyond the summer. If the world’s most significant energy choke point remains contested for months rather than weeks, the advice to work from home and fly less may come to feel less like a temporary inconvenience and more like the new normal.