EU states are desperately trying to find ways to cut their energy use before winter arrives, after Russia began throttling gas supplies to the continent.
Germany has already begun turning off street lights in Berlin while Hanover will shut off hot water in public buildings. Oktoberfest and Christmas markets also face being scrapped, politicians have admitted, and breweries could be closed.
In Austria, the city of Linz has stopped lighting historic landmarks at night while Salzburg is drawing up plans to follow suit.
Europe is facing an acute energy crisis as Putin weaponises energy supplies in apparent retaliation for leaders defying him over Ukraine.
The continent typically gets around 40 per cent of the gas it uses from Russia, but is now facing the reality of a winter without it or with very restricted supplies.
Germany will be the worst-hit because it is overly-reliant on Russia - getting more than half of the supplies it used in a typical year piped in direct from Moscow.
And, unlike other EU countries, it does not have ports capable of getting gas shipped in from elsewhere. It is building two, but they won't be ready until the New Year.
In order to avert shortages, it is restarting mothballed coal-fired plants and is looking to extend the life-spans of its three remaining nuclear plants which were due to be taken out of service at the end of the year.
Similar moves are underway in Belgium, where talks are ongoing between the government at a French contractor which runs two nuclear plants to extend their lifetimes by another ten years.
However, the firm has said the plants cannot come back online until 2026 at the earliest - far too late to help in the coming crisis.
In France itself, which has one of the biggest and most-advanced collections of nuclear power plants anywhere in the world, there are also problems.
Half its reactors are currently offline because of an unexpected problem with their cooling systems, and there is no set date for them to be powered back up.
In the meantime, EDF - the firm which runs them - is being forced to run up huge debts buying energy from elsewhere in Europe to bridge the gap.
The situation has become so severe that Emmanuel Macron's government is floating the idea of nationalising the company in order to get the plants operational again.
Countries are also trying to stockpile as much gas as possible before winter arrives, which has driven up prices to near-record levels.
Households in both the UK - which buys gas from Europe - and Germany have been warned bills could triple, while Germans also facing paying an additional 'gas surcharge' to stop supplies going bust.
The exact amount has yet to be announced, but economy minister Robert Habeck has warned it will definitely be in the 'hundreds' of euros while some experts have calculated it could be as much as £1,000 extra per year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ain-tells-workers-not-wear-ties-cool-off.html
