Gas up about 140 percent, diesel doubled, a €106 billion import bill — and a continent that once stayed silent now warning Washington against another round of strikes.
Published 25 October 2026 · 16:13 GMT
Gas up about 140 percent, diesel doubled, a €106 billion import bill — and a continent that once stayed silent now warning Washington against another round of strikes. The United States and Israel opened their war on Iran on 28 February 2026, invoking Iran's nuclear programme; Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes. After the EU summit on 16 October, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe's fossil-fuel import bill had risen by €106 billion, gas prices by about 140 percent since late February, and diesel prices had doubled.
The US-Israeli war on Iran, now eight months old, has imposed a large, measurable cost on Europe — gas prices up about 140 percent since late February, diesel doubled, Brent crude still well above $100, and a European import bill more than €100 billion higher — and European governments that first stayed silent are now openly warning against renewed strikes.
Whether relief should come first from diplomacy or from supply measures; whether the protests spreading across Europe form one movement or separate national explosions with a common cause; and whether alliance partnership obliges European governments to facilitate a war they did not choose — the bases-and-airspace split shows four different answers.
Whether Washington will order renewed strikes, how long Hormuz shipping restrictions will last, whether prices would fall back if they eased, or whether Europe can rebuild gas stocks to the 80 percent level its energy commissioner has urged.
Eight months after the United States and Israel opened their war on Iran on 28 February 2026, the war has stopped being a distant conflict for Europe and has become a domestic one. Several Western European governments that first stayed silent, or only condemned Iran's retaliation, now openly warn Washington and Tel Aviv against new strikes — in the language of household bills, not diplomacy.
On Friday, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy sat down in Istanbul with their counterparts from Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt to discuss the conflict and the Strait of Hormuz. France's foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said further escalation "would create nothing but losers" and "would undoubtedly have very serious consequences for hydrocarbon prices". The group of eight, he said, would call on both sides "to exercise the utmost restraint, because we cannot afford another escalation in the region".
The shift matters because it is no longer only Spain speaking this way. It is the core of Western Europe, speaking as winter approaches.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put a figure on it after the 16 October EU summit: Europe's bill for imported fossil fuels has increased by €106 billion, gas prices have risen about 140 percent since late February, and diesel prices have doubled. "Households and industry are paying the price for a war far beyond our borders," she said. Reuters, reporting the Commission's own estimate, puts the cost of the conflict to Europe at roughly €100 billion through disrupted trade and energy markets. Both point the same way.
The oil price tells the same story in a single line. Brent crude settled at $72.48 a barrel on 27 February, the day before the war began. It reached $126.41 at the end of April and remains well above $100 a barrel, with no sign of falling any time soon. In the EU, a litre of diesel rose from €1.59 to €2.14 between mid-February and mid-October, while Europe's benchmark gas price nearly tripled.
Governments have already spent heavily to cushion the blow. The Commission told eurozone finance ministers that 25 member states spent €17.9 billion in 2026 cushioning prices — more than two-thirds untargeted. Beyond fuel, the Gulf is a hub for nitrogen-based fertilisers, urea prices are up something like 70 percent, and shippers face sharply higher war-insurance premiums or longer reroutes. Magna Bureau has tracked the eight ministers who urged restraint at Istanbul and the IEA chief's warning that oil markets will not normalise in 2027; the country-by-country picture sits in the Factbook
Whether Washington will actually order a new round of strikes, and when. Options are reportedly being prepared, but no decision has been announced, and the European warnings target a decision not yet taken.
How long restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz will last, and whether prices would fall quickly if they eased. One warning from the analysis is worth keeping: during a June truce, oil briefly fell back to pre-war levels, but tanker insurance through Hormuz did not — so part of the price may not come back down even if the shooting stops.
Whether Europe can rebuild gas stocks to the 80 percent level its energy commissioner has urged, and whether the spreading protests cohere into one political force or stay separate national explosions with a common cause. On all of these, nobody in power has given a number or a date.
Because Europe goes into winter with stocks below historical averages and prices already at crisis levels. The head of the International Energy Agency has warned that the continent faces a costly winter, that a harsh winter could push gas prices higher still, and that "life will not be easy for Europe this year and also next year". European gas prices were already about three times American prices before this crisis; the war has widened that gap and Europe's competitive disadvantage.
The fiscal strain is already visible. Eurozone government bond yields are close to multi-year highs, with bets on at least three ECB rate rises by late 2027. And the political strain is visible in the streets and at the ballot box: Reuters reports that cost-of-living anger is giving fresh momentum to far-right parties ahead of elections next year in France, Italy and Poland, after French unrest that saw shops looted and a 19th-century town hall in Limoges torched.
A war fought over Iran's nuclear programme is thus deciding European questions — heating costs, factory output, and who voters blame. The Istanbul warning is the first time that cost has been stated as a reason to stop the war, not collateral to endure.
The answer runs through airbases and airspace. When the war opened, Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement condemning Iran's retaliatory strikes on regional countries — but not the opening American-Israeli attacks — and saying they had not participated. What followed was not a common European position but four different ones. Germany said early on that it would not restrict American use of its bases, including Ramstein. Britain first withheld permission, then authorised limited defensive use of its bases, then expanded it to missile sites and Hormuz shipping attacks. France allowed American support aircraft at Istres for the defence of regional partners, then blocked a weapons flight to Israel connected to the campaign. Spain went furthest: it refused permission for attacks from the jointly operated Rota and Morón bases and closed its airspace to American aircraft involved in the war.
The dispute exposed the question underneath the alliance: does partnership oblige a government to facilitate a war it did not choose? Donald Trump called Spain "terrible" and threatened to cut off trade. Mark Hilborne of King's College London told Al Jazeera that a diplomatic disagreement is turning into something "much more direct", with "increased resistance to any support from European countries" possible. Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has meanwhile called the war "illegal, unjust and unjustified" at the European summit itself. The alliance has not broken — but the argument is now public, because the bills have arrived.
First, household budgets: consumers will feel the full effect of this year's wholesale gas rally in 2027, as fixed retail contracts expire — the pain is back-loaded. Second, industry: with European gas already far above American prices, prolonged high energy costs threaten competitiveness and investment, and governments already stretched by €17.9 billion of cushioning have less room for the next round.
Third, the energy map: Washington has pressed Europe to release emergency diesel stocks while easing restrictions on Russian diesel — a move Ukraine's supporters say hands Moscow fresh energy revenue. A war meant to weaken one adversary is thus, through the price mechanism, enriching another. Fourth, politics: if prices stay high into election year, the far-right momentum Reuters already records in France, Italy and Poland could harden into something larger — a European politics reorganised around the cost of other people's wars.
One: whether Washington orders renewed strikes, and whether the Istanbul group's call for "the utmost restraint" holds or is ignored. Two: whether Europe can lift gas stocks toward the 80 percent level its energy commissioner has urged, cut demand, and get through winter without rationing or emergency measures. Three: whether the protests across France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Albania — different causes, one common thread of living costs — grow into a coordinated demand, and what they do to governments already spending billions to hold prices down.
The war's next chapter may be written in the Gulf. Its European chapter will be written in heating bills, bond markets and streets.
The Western lens: a bill that arrives as politics Read from London, Frankfurt and Brussels, this is a story about a bill becoming a ballot. Reuters' reporting stresses the fiscal arithmetic — €17.9 billion already spent cushioning prices, bond yields near multi-year highs, and consumer pain deferred into 2027 because retail contracts renew late. In Germany, gas tariffs for new customers have already risen 55 percent this year; in Britain, the energy price cap, raised to a three-year high in October, could rise another 16 percent in January.
The Eastern lens: a chokepoint the world cannot route around Read from Tehran and from Asia's energy markets, the story is about a strait, not a summit. Iran's armed forces closed the Strait of Hormuz after the February campaign began, and through it passes roughly a fifth of the world's oil and a similar share of liquefied natural gas. The IEA chief's warning, reported in the region's press, is that Europe must now compete for supplies with Asian economies including India and China, with stocks entering winter far below historical averages.
The Southern lens: the bill lands where the buffer is thinnest Read from Doha, Sanaa and the Global South, the European crisis is the visible tip of a wider one. Al Jazeera's reporting stresses food and fertiliser alongside fuel: urea up some 70 percent, shipping insurance and rerouting costs passed down to consumers everywhere, and a war premium embedded in prices even when oil itself dips. At a meeting of the EU's energy ministers, the bloc's energy commissioner said Europe had spent more than €100 billion on additional energy imports this year "without obtaining a single additional molecule of gas or barrel of oil".
The United States and Israel launched their attacks on 28 February 2026, invoking Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes only. The backdrop is the 2015 nuclear deal that limited Iran's programme in exchange for sanctions relief; Donald Trump withdrew the United States from that deal during his first term in 2018, and both Washington and Tel Aviv cited the programme when launching the February campaign.
By mid-October, European gas prices had risen about 140 percent since late February and diesel prices had doubled, according to the European Commission president. Brent crude went from $72.48 a barrel on 27 February to $126.41 at the end of April and remains well above $100. In the EU, a litre of diesel rose from €1.59 to €2.14 between mid-February and mid-October.
Protests over living costs, housing, wages and public services have been seen across France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Albania. Their causes vary and they do not form a single coordinated movement, but experts say the cost-of-living crisis, compounded by price rises caused by the Iran war, is a common thread — alongside, for younger protesters, opposition to war and to military spending at the expense of welfare.
Diplomats at Istanbul called for the utmost restraint from both sides, and analysts point to two conditions: a durable agreement that ends the threat of renewed strikes, and restored shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Even then, relief may be partial — during a June truce, oil briefly fell to pre-war levels while tanker insurance through Hormuz did not, so part of the war premium may stay embedded in prices.
