As water levels subside, local authorities and insurance companies are starting to count the cost of flood damage.

According to preliminary estimates, this will total around 20 billion crowns (€800m). Floods hit the country on June 2 after nearly a week of heavy rains.

Experts warn that the cost of unisured property damage might be particurarly high this time as cautious insurance companies learned from the past and refused to insure households or even public buildings in flood zones.

Malta is failing to comply with European Union pledges to cut carbon dioxide emissions produced as a result of fuel combustion, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency.

Malta has yet to comply with a 2010 EU-wide committment to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 20 per cent, compared to 1990 levels, by a deadline of 2020. The newspaper continues –

Meeting this target, for Malta, meant slashing its carbon dioxide emissions by half. But this drastic decrease has not yet started to happen. According to Eurostat estimates issued last month, Malta was one of only four EU member states to see their CO2 emissions increase between 2011 and 2012. Proportionally, the estimated increase of 6.3 per cent is also the highest in the EU, and by a considerable margin.

The waters of the Danube have risen to record levels in Budapest: 8.90 metres on June 9. As it stands, however, flood barriers in the capital and elsewhere in the country are holding, explains Népszabadság. Volunteers and flood defence workers have been working around the clock under the direction of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and 1,000 people have been evacuated.

Hungary is experiencing the worst flooding in its history, notes the daily, but it has successfully prevented fatalities, while flooding in neighbouring countries has already claimed 18 lives, including 10 in the Czech Republic.

"The North is sinking," headlines Czech financial daily Hospodářské Noviny, as flooding in Bohemia continues for the fourth consecutive day. In Prague, where the Vltava broke its banks on Tuesday morning, the situation seems to have stabilised but Ústí nad Labem and the north of the country are threatened by the rising Elbe River, the paper says, adding that –

The flooding of the Danube is ravaging Austria and in particular Salzburg, the Tyrol and the Vorarlberg region. Austrian daily Die Presse warns that "400,000 buildings in Austria are in areas at risk of flooding, mud slides, or avalanches, including 150,000 in permanent-risk 'red zones'". The paper adds that –

In Germany, Chancellor Angela "Merkel awards €100m to the flood victims, headlines German daily Der Tagesspiegel. In the Bavarian town of Passau, the waters reached a record level of over 12 metres – "the worst flood in more than a half-century," the paper says. It also notes that, just three months before scheduled legislative elections, Merkel has kept a low profile during her recent trips to the flooded areas–

"The waters can flood the country," says the front page of Hungarian daily Népszava. It is Hungary's turn to prepare for the onslaught of the historic flooding by the Danube. The river's level could reach 8.75 metres, or 15cm over the record highs posted in 2002 and 2006. Népszava adds that –

With the Czech Republic's worst flooding in over a decade leaving “seven people dead, four missing and nine thousand evacuated from their homes”, the Prague daily reports that questions are arising over the responsibility for the damages:

“Experts claim that politicians have not taken their warning seriously enough [...] and politicians and local authorities blame fuzzy meteorological and hydrological forecasts.”

MF DNES notes that while the Vltava river peaked early in the morning after paralysing traffic in the capital, the danger has moved north, where surging waters of the Elbe continue to rise in northern Bohemia and Saxony in Germany.

Conditions worsened in flooded areas as the waters rose "dramatically on June 2," reports Austrian daily Der Standard.

In Salzburg, in the Tyrol and in the Vorarlberg region, in the west of the country, entire communities are underwater. A man was killed in a mudslide and two women are missing.

Experts are forecasting record-high water levels, beyond those set in the 2002 "flood of the century," says the paper. Southern Germany and the Czech Republic are also affected by the flooding

After three days of heavy rains, the country fell victim on June 2 to the heaviest floods since the devastating deluge in 2002.

A state of emergency has been declared in 13 of the country’s 14 regions, giving authorities the power to order evacuations and to deploy the army. The government has released 300 million crowns (€12m) for immediate aid relief.

The floods have killed at least four people with several more missing. Transport is limited in affected towns, including Prague, where most subway stations are closed. Water levels are still rising and are expected to peak in the coming days.

The latest proposal to reduce emissions quotas on the carbon credits market, which is under discussion in the European Parliament, will increase electricity prices.

The change will affect 12,000 European energy companies and industrial businesses, as well as hundreds of millions of consumers, warns the business newspaper.

One further consequence could also be that plans to build new reactors at the Temelin nuclear power station may become economically viable.

As of July 1, electricity prices in Warsaw and northern Poland will drop by 4 per cent in an effort to boost consumption after the economic slowdown has driven down demand. “It is high time, as prices as a proportion of our disposable household income is one of the highest in the EU,” writes Gazeta Wyborcza.

Cypriot residents spend the largest proportion of their disposable household income buying electricity, followed by Poland and Germany in joint second place, according to a Eurostat report examining data throughout the EU.

“This disproportion is mainly due to the fact that Poland is one of the poorest countries in the EU,” notes the daily, stressing that nominal prices in Poland are still lower than the EU average.

Cyprus, Greece and Israel could play an important role in securing the EU’s energy resources, reports Politis.

In the course of discussions on May 22, the European Council examined “the question of a more systematic recourse to on-shore and off-shore indigenous sources of energy,” which could include the building of a gas pipeline linking the three countries to the rest of Europe, explains the daily.

Cypriot President Antonis Anastasiades expressed his ambition to make his country an “energy hub” for Europe.

At the European Council summit on May 22, national leaders of member states will likely approve a change of course on Europe’s energy policy.

As Der Standard points out —

Whereas in recent years the emphasis has been on the development of renewables and climate protection, the priority will now be on the lowering of energy costs […] with a view to boosting growth and job creation. Low energy prices will play a decisive role in reinforcing competitiveness.

The newspaper adds that proposals for greater investment in nuclear power will also be on the agenda for the summit, where “France and Great Britain will be advocating a resumption of subsidies for atomic energy.”

The London offices of oil giants BP and Shell were raided on May 15 by investigators from the European Commission probing allegations that companies were manipulating the price of crude oil.

This is the latest investigation into price fixing in the UK, following probes into the manipulation of the Libor interest rate and gas prices, writes The Independent, adding that:

the EC’s decisive action escalated a campaign that has been gathering momentum in recent months, after a report for the G20 last summer found that the market is wide open to ‘manipulation or distortion’.

Days after North American companies Marathon Oil and Talisman Energy stopped shale gas fracking in Poland, news emerges that the country’s chief geologist and deputy environment minister Piotr Woźniak spoke out against US companies investing in shale gas extraction in Poland, claims Rzeczpospolita.

The daily quotes a confidential memo by an employee of an embassy of “one of the interested countries”, which was written after a private meeting held in Warsaw on March 13 with 130 investors, businessmen and diplomats in which the politician is reported to have made the comments.

Meanwhile another participant quoted by the daily argues that

People responsible for the energy sector are pushing ahead with the idea of keeping the energy industry in Polish hands.

Romania has taken a “discreet” step towards shale gas extraction, announces Jurnalul naţional. On April 29, the Environment Ministry gave the green light to foreign energy companies, including US giant Chevron, to explore by possible reserves in the south-eastern Dobrogea region.

The decision “has wrong-footed the public, who expected a public debate, and more importantly a presentation of environmental impact studies” before any such move, writes the daily, which quotes government minister, Rovana Plumb —

All the EU countries need energy independence and shale gas extraction is one means of attaining this goal.

The minister adds that “the exploration phase does not represent a risk to the environment, because there is no use of hydraulic fracturing technology” in the process of identifying potential reserves of the unconventional hydrocarbon, which can be found several thousand metres underground.

In response to the news, the Vama Verde environmental group announced that it would organise a protest in Vama Veche, in the Dobrogea region, and further demonstrations are planned for the end of the month.

Romania is following the example of Poland and the United Kingdom, the two European countries which have committed to shale gas exploration. Others, like France, have introduced a moratorium on the issue.

The European Union is planning to impose import taxes on Chinese-made solar panel equipment in a move which is likely to trigger “one of the largest trade battles of recent decades,” writes the business daily.

The duties, which will include solar panels, their primary components, solar cells and silicon wafers, are expected to average 46 per cent, according to the newspaper’s sources, and are intended to protect solar equipment manufacturing firms within Europe from a tide of cheap Chinese imports. They could be imposed as early as June 5.

Dozens of European firms have closed since China entered the market six years ago, amid claims by European manufacturers that Chinese firms receive illegal state subsidies.

Europe is the world’s largest solar panel market and in 2011, China controlled 80 per cent of the European market, trade that was worth around €21bn or about 7 per cent of China’s total exports to Europe, reports the paper.

A man has died and 49 have been hospitalised after inhaling toxic fumes released when a train carrying chemicals derailed and caught fire in Wetteren, northwest Belgium, on May 4.

The exact causes of the accident are not known yet, although the train driver has admitted exceeding the speed limit on that part of the track.

A total of 250 people living within 500 metres of the crash site were immediately evacuated following the accident and people in nearby villages were told to remain indoors.

Some of the victims, and the dead man, were living beyond the security perimeter and are thought to have become sick after water used to douse the fire mixed with the toxic chemicals and washed into the drains. This has led to a polemic on the way the authorities managed the crisis.

Germany’s new energy policy “is a curse,” argues Handelsblatt, which reports that instead of causing shortages, the 2011 decision to abandon nuclear power resulted in an overproduction of solar and wind power, which saturated the country’s grid.

The reports from the official body which monitors the system read “like a thriller,” points out the business daily, which cites a number of extracts —

The safety of the network was no longer guaranteed. [...] We had to intervene more than 40 times to disconnect entire power stations and wind parks, which endangered the safety of the system. The stress generated by these situations was increasingly difficult to manage.

In 2012, some 23 per cent of the electricity produced in Germany was sourced from renewables, and the plan is to increase this figure to 80 per cent by 2050.

Both industry and automobiles have become cleaner over the last 10 years, however, this gain has been wiped out by an increase in the number of cars on Belgian roads.

According to a government report, cars — and in particular the diesel engine cars which are widespread in corporate car fleets — have now become the number one source of carcinogenic fine particle pollution.

The newspaper publishes a map of Europe, which shows that levels of nitrogen oxides — a. k.a. greenhouse gasses — are particularly high in Begium, the Netherlands, the area around Paris and northern Italy.

Five years after its launch in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, "Desertec is showing few results," notes German news website Spiegel Online.

The project hoped to exploit the solar and wind potential of deserts to supply sustainable energy world-wide. However, the plan is now coming under criticism, especially by the residents of the desert regions in question, who, according to several human rights organisations, are now wondering what the project is actually doing for them.

These groups are demanding a greater say for the local populations in the project, which Spiegel Online says was designed "in the back rooms of the Club of Rome [...] a think-tank of old men pondering on how to save the world."

"After the Arab Spring, we want to respond to the demands for greater justice and shared decision-making. We must include civil society, that is the only way Desertec will succeed," explains a spokesperson for Germanwatch, a climate change NGO.

The website also stresses that the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), launched in 2009 by a private consortium of banks and energy providers to develop the project in North Africa and the Middle East, faces growing competition. British firm Nur Energie plans to open a 2,000 Megawatt solar power plant in Tunisia in 2015. The electricity produced will be exported to Italy.

The project manager says it is moving ahead –

Tunisian partners have been found, the accords with the Italian groups are ready to be signed [...] and many elements can be manufactured on site. Sixty per cent of the full investment can stay in the country and the creation of 1,000 jobs is expected.

"In 2012, Germany once again exported more electricity than it imported," reports Spiegel Online. It exported 66.6 TWh (terawatt hours) compared to the 43.8 TWh which were imported, according to figures published by the Federal Statistics Office.

This 22.8 TWh surplus, worth some €1.4bn, corresponds "to the annual production of two large nuclear power plants. [...] No other European country exported as much electricity as Germany," continues Stern Online.

These figures are unexpected given that Germany began to withdraw from nuclear power in 2011. Eight of Germany's 17 plants were shut down after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan in March 2011.

Yet, due to the rise in electricity supplied by solar and wind energy, whose share in the energy mix rose by 23 per cent in 2012, the energy surplus has quadrupled and the country earned €1.4bn in energy export sales.

Many experts had feared an electricity shortage "but the rise in exports shows that there is more electricity than is needed and that available capacity, including the maximum energy available in case of added demand, is sufficient," Der Speigel notes. German electricity is mostly exported to the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.

"The shale gas revolution is not feasible," headlines Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, following the March 27 meeting of European Union environment and climate ministers.

According to the newspaper, EU Commissioner for Climate, Connie Hedegaard, and the Commissioner for Energy, Günther Oettinger, sought to dampen the enthusiasm of some member states that aim to exploit shale gas reserves, which are thought to be considerable in Europe.

While some countries such as France and Belgium have imposed a moratorium, others such as the United Kingdom and Poland have already begun exploratory drilling. The newspaper notes that the EU Commission plans to establish a political framework, at the latest by the end of the year, which will regulate shale gas extraction in those member states wishing to take advantage of their reserves.

Shale gas extraction is "controversial" because of its negative environmental impact, explains the newspaper, which goes on to quote Commissioner Hedegaard, who says —

We should not fool ourselves. This is not going to be as cheap as in the US. [...] We don't have the same wide open spaces. We pay more attention to what local people think.

In addition, compared with the United States, where the price of gas is five times cheaper, Europe has stricter environmental legislation and the geological formations are different, which is why —

experts, including, among others, the International Energy Agency, have advised the EU against relying solely on shale gas.

The UK has only two days worth of gas reserves after freezing temperatures across northern Europe boosted demand in recent weeks by 20 per cent.

The country is racing to import gas from Europe and experts warn any technical problems could leave Britain struggling to cope.

“Britain is more vulnerable than the rest of Europe to gas shortages because it has historically relied on the North Sea, where production is now dwindling. When full, the country’s stocks can hold only a supply of 15 days, compared with more than 100 days in France and Germany,” explains the daily.

The Romanian Ministry of Economy wants to back off from building Romania’s fifth nuclear reactor plant, Cernavodă, on the Danube, reveals România Liberă. The newspaper explains –

The CANDU technology CANDU 700, is a second generation reactor and, will by EU standards, be obsolete in 2025, the date it could go onstream. Other factors are the increase in the number of security measures following the Fukushima accident, the very low flow of the Danube, which has prompted the shutdown of the plant in the past, and finally, lack of money.

According to the Bucharest daily, the reactor would have allowed the country to meet more than 40 per cent of its needs. Units 3 and 4, which are in an advanced stage of construction, do meet European standards.

"Government greenlights fracking," announces El País, following the March 1 approval by the Spanish parliament of a bill which will facilitate the use of the controversial technique for the extraction shale gas, which has already been contested by affected municipalities and environemental groups. According to estimates, Spain’s unconventional gas reserves, which have been valued at €700bn, are sufficient to supply 39 years of domestic consumption, and companies in the sector have announced that, over the next few years, they are planning to invest between €700m and €1bn to develop this resource. For El País “there is no incontrovertible reason to outlaw” its development Spain, if “the collateral impact on the environment is subject to strict controls.” However, the newspaper also reports that opinion on fracking remains divided —

For some, this gas extraction technique will needlessly turn Spain into a kind of gruyère cheese. For others, it amounts to a golden opportunity for a country that imports 99 per cent of the hydrocarbons it consumes.

Division over the issue is also prevalent in Europe, adds the Madrid daily —

Europe has no common legislation on the environmental conditions that should apply for the use of this controversial method, and apparently this is not about to be rectified anytime soon. There are glaring divisions between countries, and even between the responsible [European] Commissioners. France, Ireland and Bulgaria have imposed moratoriums on fracking. Poland has resolutely backed the method. [And] to date, the reports presented both by the European Commission and the European Parliament have reached divergent conclusions.

Faced with the problem of approximately 2,000 deer, living in 3,000 hectares of dunes close to Amsterdam, which were causing extensive damage to protected ecosystems and even urban gardens, authorities built a 17km-long fence to contain the animals.

The solution had the advantage of being in line with public opinion, which is strongly opposed to hunting. However, it now appears that many of the deer are dying of hunger.

This week Amsterdam’s municipal council is set to vote on an alternative solution. It may choose the most benevolent option, which would be to shoot the deer before they die of starvation.

The European Commission has announced the opening of an investigation to establish if German industry benefits from state aid that distorts fair competition.

Since 2011, German firms, which consume large amounts of power, have not been obliged to pay for electricity network licences — an advantage that has enabled them to save €805m.

The Commission launched the procedure in the wake of complaints from consumer and energy supply associations.

Moscow is attempting to block the extraction of Romanian shale gas, which would reduce the reliance of the country and European Union on Russian energy, points out the daily.

At the end of January, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta changed his postion on the issue, having previously announced in the spring of 2012 that he was opposed to drilling.

“A Russian hand” is apparently behind the protests in Bârlad, in eastern Romania, where more than 8,000 people demonstrated on February 27.

In an attack on ethnic and religious minorities, Prime Minister Robert Fico has lashed out at Slovakia’s Hungarian community and also homosexuals claiming they are holding the country to ransom over human rights. Fico reminded those who do not share his opinions that “the state was established for Slovaks, not for minorities.”

His remarks have come at a time when a fresh controversy has erupted over the issue of dual-language signs at railway stations close to the Hungarian border.

“The prime minister is so used to having a majority (in parliament) that he has decided to flaunt his intolerance of minorities in the hope that it will mask his inability to manage the economic crisis and rising unemployment,” remarks the Bratislava daily.

On February 27, the Slovenian parliament is to vote on a motion of no-confidence in Janez Janša’s government, which lost its majority at the end of January when several parties broke away from the ruling coalition.

If Janša loses the vote, it is expected that Alenka Bratušek, the leader of Positive Slovenia, the centre-left, main opposition party, will form a new government. The 42-year-old could become the first woman in Slovenia's history to become prime minister.

Ahead of the parliamentary elections next September, the biggest EU country joins the anti-shale gas coalition and hurries to draw up regulations restricting the use of shale gas technology, reports the Warsaw daily, which quotes an interview with Chancellor Angela Merkel published by Straubinger Tagblatt.

“This is a replay of the French scenario, where shale gas exploration was banned 18 months before the presidential election”, explains Gazeta Wyborcza. The newspaper points out that “the anti-shale gas coalition in Paris and Berlin will strengthen the faction of EU politicians opposed to exploration of these deposits, which may have a negative impact on plans to extract shale gas in Poland”.

Czech electricity group ČEZ might lose 10bn crowns (€400m) worth of investment in Bulgaria, after the Sofia government announced it will revoke the company’s licence.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov ordered the licence be cancelled in an effort to calm 10 days of violent protests against high energy prices, by promising on February 19 to slash electricity bills and punish foreign-owned power companies for their high prices.

"Will shale gas poison Belgian competiveness in the years to come?" wonders the Belgian daily. The emergence of shale gas, especially in the United States, coupled with a decline in European demand, has lowered the cost of gas.

This, in turn, has led to a fall in the price of coal. As a result, European utility companies are switching from gas to coal – a more polluting energy – to produce electricity. Add to that the drop in the price of carbon credits in Europe, which have plummeted from a 2008 high of €35 for a tonne of carbon dioxide to under €5 a few weeks ago, "it now costs nothing to pollute," Le Soir concludes.

"Oil firms such as Shell are targeting Europe," says the daily newspaper. After foraging last year in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the Anglo-Dutch company is now interested in Belgium.

Shell plans to invest €100,000 to prospect for shale gas in the eastern Liège region and in the north-eastern Campine area. Other oil firms are also showing an interest, among them British firm Cuadrilla and Germany's Wintershall.

National subsidy schemes for the renewable energy sector have created an imbalance, which has weakened the competitiveness of traditional thermal energy, according to the European Commission.

As a result, Brussels plans to regulate and harmonise national subsidies to green energy and to define a European subsidy structure by 2020.

On January 31, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the development of economic relations between their countries.

Russia is Hungary’s second biggest trading partner, after Germany, and collaboration between Budapest and Moscow is set to grow, especially in the energy sector, with the routing of the South Stream gas pipeline through Hungary.

Nearly 5.5m tons of high quality uranium ore is thought to lie under Jahodná, just 15km from Slovakia’s second biggest city, Košice. The government has already signed a provisional deal on extraction with a Canadian mining company, which performed exploratory drilling.

The daily notes that opponents of mining in Košice, a popular holiday resort, say “it is a dirty trick against the local administration and Košice’s inhabitants who have already expressed their unhappiness with extraction.”

"Swiss research in the European showcase," beams Swiss daily Le Temps. The Human Brain Project an initiative of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) was selected on January 28 as one of two projects by the European Union's FET Flagship programme which promotes initiatives in innovative and sustainable technologies within the Europe 2020 programme.

The European Commissioner responsible for New Technologies, Nelly Krooes, announced the two winners of the "Flagship" competition [...] who will each be awarded €1bn: Graphene, an initiative based in Sweden which hopes to develop a revolutionary electronic material, and the Human Brain Project (HBP), headquartered at the EPFL, which plans to simulate the human brain using super-computers.

"Developing social and health applications seems to be at the core of what Europe expects of the flagships," explains French daily Le Monde. But the paper adds, "a number of philosophers such as Patrick Juignet, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, denounce this approach as 'part of a vast reductionist, materialistic, ideological current seeking to mechanise humans. [...] The human-machine turns human beings into objects, depriving them of the specifics that make them human'."

From Madrid, daily El Periódico considers this "the greatest investment in the history of European research". The paper notes that –

The most sceptical consider that this is a huge investment with no guarantee of success, but the European Commission responds that Europe needs to take a brave step and get involved in two fast-growing sectors.

Regarding the Graphene project, Italian business daily Il Sole-24 Ore notes that in Brussels the one atom-thick, nanotech material is considered "the miracle material of the 21st Century, like plastic was to the 20th." Its extraordinary properties will open the path in a large number of fields from electronics where it will replace silicon, to renewable energies, to desalination projects, to biological research and so on. "The European initiative comes a little late, but better late than never," comments Il Sole-24 Ore, noting that

These past five years, Chinese universities and business have registered 2,204 patents linked to graphene [...], the United States 1,754, South Korea 1,160 and Europe less than 500. In this context, Europe is right to attribute €1bn to the promised land of science.