How would European governments printing more of their own currencies to give handouts to their citizens, resulting in inflation, resulting in their currencies becoming weaker, help buying energy from NA?
Furthermore, the way the European electricity market works[1], other energy sources are also bid up when the price of gas increases iff this gas is needed to ensure supply in a given hour of the day. So we have been overcharged both directly (gas), mostly indirectly (electricity) and completely indirectly (goods inflation) throughout all of 2022. This is seriously hollowing out the budgets of some European families.
I don't agree that blanket handouts are the solution, but some kind of compensation is needed to those most exposed, otherwise they will sink into poverty.
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[1] : https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/eu-...
> European governments printing more of their own currencies to give handouts to their citizens, resulting in inflation
couldn't they just tax it back from the wealthy in the end...?
This takes us back to what I wrote originally - why is inflation the way to do this as opposed to just tax and spend? That is, why not create a specific tax and implement that and use the proceeds to pay for poor people's energy? Money printing is just a dishonest way to sneak a tax in on people who might not recognize it as a tax.
There's also the political cost. I'm in favour of democracy in the ideal case, but obstructionism looks like a concern in some countries, people buy into lying spin and vote against their own interests, bills have their own cadence, and lawmakers are not always intellectual powerhouses. Case in point: the BoE reacted within hours to reduce the damage done by Liz Truss