Brussels – Following a rise in prices in the second half of 2025, electricity and gas bills are falling again across the European Union. However, the decline does not affect all countries equally, and Italy continues to pay more than the European average, particularly for electricity. This is evident from the latest figures published by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, on gas and electricity for the first half of 2026.
The picture shows a gradual easing of the energy burden on European households, but with marked national differences remaining, and electricity costs in Italy higher than the EU average. The issue nevertheless remains at the centre of European political concerns, particularly amid market tensions and supply uncertainties ahead of winter. Just yesterday (29 October), in Luxembourg, the energy ministers of the 27 Member States met to discuss price volatility and security of supply. On that occasion, the European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, warned that the coming winter would be “difficult.”
The average European gas price fell by 10.2 per cent compared with the second semester of 2025, dropping from 0.1228 to 0.1103 euros per kilowatt-hour. This is the lowest level recorded since the first half of 2022. The fall follows the 7.4 per cent rise seen in the second half of 2025 from the previous six months, partly due to normal seasonal fluctuations. The current price is also 3.5 per cent lower than in the same period of 2025.
In Italy, the price of gas fell from 0.1481 euros per kWh in the second half of 2025 to 0.1137 in the first half of 2026, representing a reduction of around 23 per cent. The country has thus fallen from third to ninth place in the ranking of the highest prices, while remaining above the European average. In the half-year just ended, the highest prices were recorded in Sweden (0.2201 euros), the Netherlands (0.1622 euros) and France (0.1347 euros). The lowest were in Hungary (0.033 euros), Croatia (0.0502 euros) and Romania (0.0594 euros).
Electricity prices have also fallen across Europe, albeit to a lesser extent: the average price for households fell by 2.2 per cent, from 0.2896 to 0.2832 euros per kWh. However, prices remain well above the levels seen before the 2022 energy crisis. In Italy, by contrast, the price rose from 0.2966 euros in the second half of 2025 to 0.3142 euros in the first half of 2026, almost 11 per cent above the European average. The country ranks fifth among the EU-27, behind Ireland (0.3871 euros), Germany (0.3618 euros), Belgium (0.3575 euros) and Austria (0.326 euros).
The tax component also continues to affect bills. In the first half of 2026, taxes and levies accounted for 32.1 per cent of the final price of gas in the EU, up by one percentage point compared with the same period in 2025. For electricity, however, this share fell to 28.4 per cent, half a percentage point lower than in the previous half-year. There remain significant differences between Member States: for gas, the tax burden reaches 55.2 per cent in the Netherlands and 50.4 per cent in Denmark, while for electricity it stands at 46.9 per cent in Poland.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
