Some nations have been woefully unprepared for rising fuel costs, governments failing to insulate their citizens from rising global prices. For instance, most UK homes are heated by natural gas, this being in part due to the use of gas fields in Britain's North Sea. But these gas fields have now been largely depleted, meaning that most UK natural gas is imported from abroad. This leaves UK citizens vulnerable to fluctuations in global gas prices.

Many nations, including France, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Denmark, have effectively banned fracking – a process through which natural gas is extracted from shale rock – typically due to local concerns about earth tremors and opposition from green groups. Instead, many of these nations import much of their natural gas, again exposing their economies to global prices.

To make matters worse, many countries have found themselves addicted to Russia's cheap gas and oil, failing to question Russia's suitability as a trading partner even after its 2014 annexation of Crimea. According to the BBC, in 2021 Russia provided 40% of the EU's natural gas and 27% of its imported oil. By far the worst offender has been Germany, which imported an enormous 56.2 billion cubic metres (1.98 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas from Russia last year.

Now let's take a look at how different European nations are tackling the energy crisis...

Europe's energy crisis, and what governments are doing about it