As it is with all these things: it’s complicated. I’m from Germany, at least. To be very brief: German Gas consumption is rather high per capita, since a lot of our homes are heated with gas only, many of our industries need gas as fuel or ingredient, whether it is for the steel industry or chemical industry and so on. Gas was meant to be a cheap bridge from coal to renewable, but because of some peculiar political decisions, the incentive to lower gas consumption just kicked into effect before the war. And price wise that only became a problem as soon as gas prices exploded and the expectation that gas could be scarce (which ultimately didn’t happen) triggered enormous prices for gas consumption, since our gas tanks are still filled with the expensive gas, even if the price sinks.

And without jeopardizing the economy, private people but the deficit as well, what the German state payed is limited and nowhere near the actually price hike especially low and middle income households are struggling to keep up with.

We all do.

To simplify: Because to stimulate the growth of renewable energy and to secure energy accessibility, in the early EU there are several agreements in place for the energy market - for example to always pay the highest price of the energy mix that is currently in use. Cheapest are wind and solar, followed by other renewables, coal, nuclear and finally the most expensive: gas. If energy demand is too high, German gas reactors go live, and even if you’d receive 90% renewables and only 10% gas you’d pay 100% the gas price for all of it.

This is why there are reforms discussed in the EU with the plan to implement them in 2023.