| Early data show that high oil prices in Europe have already started to eat into consumer spending in other areas and could push the region back into recession, said the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, Monday.
The European Union will spend an estimated $502 billion on energy imports in 2012, compared with $472 billion in 2011, said Birol in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. A further $100 billion will go in 2012 on imports of natural gas, the price of which is indexed to oil, Birol said...............................................Full Article: Source |