Bloomberg: Europe’s Green Energy Rules Cost U.K. $156 Billion
European Union laws that reduce pollution and ensure energy security may have cost the U.K. as much as 93.2 billion pounds ($156.5 billion), a group campaigning to renegotiate membership in the bloc said.
Business for Britain calculated the impact as a range starting at 86.6 billion pounds and said the rules are threatening jobs and driving companies to nations with lower power prices. The rules account for about 9 percent of the cost of energy for the biggest users such as ceramics and glass makers.
European energy prices are among the highest in the developed world. Some industrial consumers pay about 20 percent more for electricity than companies in China, about 65 percent more than in India and twice as much as in the U.S. and Russia, the report said. Rising prices in the U.K. are threatening as many as 1.5 million jobs, it said.