France and Norway are cushioning the impact of high energy bills in particular:
France: "..forcing the state-owned energy provider EDF to limit electricity wholesale price rises to 4 per cent for a year. The move is expected to cost €8.4 billion. The French government aims for this move to limit electricity price increases to 4 per cent, compared to an expected 45 per cent.
Norway: "According to a scheme introduced by the government in 2021, Norwegians only pay bills in full when prices are under 70 crowns (€7) per kWh. When energy bills pass that threshold, the government covers 80 per cent of the total."
Meanwhile in the UK, we have a self-absorbed government that has effectively 'checked-out' with no urgency to tackle cost-of-living crisis.
I'm not sure that the move to cap electricity prices in France really 'costs' anything since moat of electricity is from local nuclear and hydro. It sounds more of a loss of potential earnings for EDF (which is indeed in the process of being fully re-mationalised so the State may be fine with that).
The issue in the UK is that the government has nowhere to go apart from actually paying hard cash to subsidise prices to consumers... an inexistant national energy strategy cannot be dreamt up overnight (it's not just this government, it's been going on for decades).
It's going to be an absolute shitshow this winter and the (UK) government may be forced to do something even if that means borrowing even more, although they can also impose a windfall tax in energy companies (they already have).
Just correcting the units of order here for Norway:
The Norwegian government pays 80% of the price above 70 øre (€0.0704) per kWh.
From October they will increase this to 90%. The coverage is capped at 5000 kWh consumption per month.
Attempting to expand NATO to Russia's doorstep has proven pretty damaging it seems.
According to the February predictions the Russian economy should also have imploded by now. It now looks equally likely that the European economy will crater first.
NATO should have expanded to Ukraine long ago then we would not see this bullshit now.
Don't spread FUD about the European enonomy, it will be fine.
The actual mistake was that we should have backed away from fossil energy technology long ago. Our governments and people knew it for like 30 years. Only disinformation about "loosing our wealth" and lobbying made fossil energy survive. But now thanks to Putin there will be a change. Now we are in fear of "loosing our wealth" because we went on and on with old fossil energy. - Now that this is clear for everybody, there is nothing that will stop the full potential of fossil free energy. Plus maybe we will finally get rid of eating meat on the long run.
The NATO gang was busy waging wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to bother much with threatening Russia from Ukraine's border. Besides, Russian relations with the west were relatively cordial until Hillary/NATO destroyed Libya.
As with Georgia the intent was to put the country on a 1-2 decade long path to article 5 protections (PFP) where NATO could gradually ramp up its ability to militarily threaten Russia but was under no obligation to actually defend against Russian aggression.
France: "..forcing the state-owned energy provider EDF to limit electricity wholesale price rises to 4 per cent for a year. The move is expected to cost €8.4 billion. The French government aims for this move to limit electricity price increases to 4 per cent, compared to an expected 45 per cent.
Norway: "According to a scheme introduced by the government in 2021, Norwegians only pay bills in full when prices are under 70 crowns (€7) per kWh. When energy bills pass that threshold, the government covers 80 per cent of the total."
Meanwhile in the UK, we have a self-absorbed government that has effectively 'checked-out' with no urgency to tackle cost-of-living crisis.