Italy Pushes EU to Overhaul Green Deal as Iran War Sustains European Energy Costs
Rome's deputy prime minister called Hormuz a "problem" and vowed pressure on EU energy policy, with ICE Endex TTF near €72 per megawatt-hour months into the conflict.
Italy's deputy prime minister told reporters on Friday (2026-09-04) that Rome would keep pressing the European Union on energy costs and demanded a revamp of the Green Deal framework, describing the Iran war's disruption to the Strait of Hormuz as a "problem" for European energy buyers.7
ICE Endex TTF front-month gas stood at €71.95 per megawatt-hour and ICE Brent crude front-month at $94.97 a barrel as of September 6, both supported by disruption to the strait through which roughly 20% of global oil and gas moves, according to Confindustria data published earlier this year.1
Italy's push reflects industrial exposure as much as political calculation. Confindustria, the country's main business lobby, warned in May (2026-05-21) that European gas prices could nearly triple if the Iran war ran through year end, while projecting prices still around 14% above last year's average even if fighting ended by April. That April endpoint has since passed without resolution.1
The group's baseline assumed the conflict would not extend beyond March, allowing flows through Hormuz to normalise and production to approach pre-attack levels. It didn't. By late June (2026-06-22), Italy's energy minister was describing the geopolitical picture in the Middle East as "chaotic," citing ongoing uncertainty over LNG supplies from Qatar and the outlook for prices, Montel reported.1,4
A provisional US-Iran agreement announced on Sunday (2026-06-14) briefly appeared to change the picture. European gas prices fell 5.8% on June 15 (2026-06-15) following news of the deal, according to Bloomberg data cited by Oilprice.com. But the move did not hold.2
Hormuz shipping remained contested through late June (2026-06-22). Contradictory signals from Tehran and Washington left traders unable to price the strait's status with any precision. On Saturday (2026-06-20), US Central Command said safe passage was intact, with 55 merchant ships transiting and more than 17 million barrels of cargo moving through the waterway. Yet oil prices continued to swing as the "deal to make a deal" left fundamental questions about navigation rights unanswered, Oilprice.com reported.5
QatarEnergy's Ras Laffan hub, the world's largest LNG complex, remained under force majeure throughout the period. A strike at one of Australia's largest LNG facilities, with production capacity exceeding 9 million tonnes per year, added a separate supply constraint with no connection to events in the Gulf, E&E News reported.3,2
Together, those two disruptions meant European buyers faced a supply squeeze that a Hormuz ceasefire alone could not unwind. Qatar force majeure and Australian labour disputes are not solved by a peace agreement in the Gulf.3
Rome's call to revamp the Green Deal in this context carries a specific logic: sustained high energy costs make decarbonisation compliance more expensive for Italian industry. But the framing sits awkwardly against the Green Deal's core purpose, which is to reduce Europe's dependence on imported hydrocarbons — precisely the dependence now proving costly.7
The diplomatic dimension complicates the picture further. Analysts at the European Policy Centre in Brussels have noted that Washington's approach to trade and territorial disputes has strained ties with European centre-right governments, limiting the transatlantic alignment that any lasting Hormuz settlement would require.6
With ICE Brent crude front-month at $94.97 and ICE Endex TTF front-month at €71.95 per megawatt-hour as of September 6, the energy cost burden underpinning Italy's Green Deal argument remains concrete. Whether Rome can shift EU policy before year end, or Confindustria's near-tripling scenario becomes the operative forecast for a war running longer than anyone modelled, is what traders and industrial buyers will be tracking through the autumn.7,1