It’s easy to lecture world leaders about how fuel subsidies ruin the environment and bleed state coffers dry, but try telling that to beleaguered Bolivians and cornered Kenyans… two of the many nations where the energy crisis has reached breaking point with citizens unable to keep up with prices at the pump. It’s not just in the Americas, Africa and Asia where the Iran war’s destroying livelihoods and derailing fiscal roadmaps.
France - which at the outset of an election year is already running the biggest budget deficit of the euro zone 5-point-1 percent of GDP - further loosening purse strings with the Prime Minister announcing fresh measures. So, to subsidize or not to subsidize? On that score, what lessons learned from the last energy crisis in 2022? Oil and gas prices are notoriously volatile. What if the Strait of Hormuz is never the same again. And the immediate, how much fuel is there before the entire global economy’s running on empty?
Produced by François Picard, Antonia Cimini, Juliette Laffont, Juliette Brown, Charles Wente.
