<\/p>\n
BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 Leaders from across the European Union are meeting Thursday to grapple with rising oil and gas prices caused by the war raging across key energy producers and shipping lanes in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Many of those leaders have deflected entreaties by U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0to send military assets to\u00a0secure the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the global flow of oil, gas and fertilizer.\u00a0Rising energy prices\u00a0because of the war and fears in Europe of\u00a0a new refugee crisis\u00a0have pushed leaders to make the Middle East a priority at the summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very worried about the energy crisis,\u201d said Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever ahead of\u00a0the European Council summit\u00a0of 27 leaders of European Union nations. He said that energy prices were too high before the war, but that the conflict \u201ccreated another spike.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that becomes structural, we\u2019re in deep trouble,” he said. “At a European level, some measures can be taken to address the problem of the high energy prices.\u201d<\/p>\n
The European Commission has told leaders it has a mix of financial instruments that member nations could deploy to lower energy prices, which will be up for discussion. No single policy will likely work to blunt the economic shocks from the war across the bloc’s myriad markets from Romania to Ireland.<\/p>\n
European leaders have struggled to take a firm stance on the fighting in Iran and Lebanon. While they have been critical of the Iranian government, they have not provided military support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a war that was started by the United States and Israel against Iran on reasons that I can understand because the Iranian regime is brutal not only for its own people, but also for the broader region and a security threat for Europe,\u201d said Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s not a war that we are part of,” he said, calling for more sanctions on Iran and support for opposition groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 Leaders from across the European Union are meeting Thursday to grapple with rising oil and gas prices caused by the war raging across key energy producers and shipping lanes in the Middle East. Many of those leaders have deflected entreaties by U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0to send military assets to\u00a0secure the Strait of Hormuz,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1644,940,6085,2803,7614,1139],"class_list":{"0":"post-22948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-costs","9":"tag-east","10":"tag-energy","11":"tag-middle","12":"tag-scrambles","13":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}