Sober or bright? Europe faces holidays during energy crunch

VERONA, Italy — Early season merrymakers sipping mulled wine and shopping for holiday decorations packed the Verona Christmas market for its inaugural weekend. But beyond the wooden market stalls, the Italian city still has not decked out its graniteclad pedestrian streets with twinkling holiday lights as officials debate how bright to make the season during an energy crisis.

In cities across Europe, officials are wrestling with a choice as energy prices have gone up because of Russia’s war in Ukraine: Dim Christmas lighting to send a message of energy conservation and solidarity with citizens squeezed by higher utility bills and inflation, while protecting public coffers. Or let the lights blaze in a message of defiance after two years of pandemic-suppressed Christmas seasons, illuminating cities with holiday cheer that retailers hope will loosen people’s purse strings.

“If they take away the lights, they might as well turn off Christmas,” said Estrella Puerto, who sells traditional Spanish mantillas, or women’s veils, in a small store in Granada, Spain, and says Christmas decorations draw business.

Fewer lights are sparkling from the centrepiece tree at the famed Strasbourg Christmas market, which attracts two million people every year, as the French city seeks to reduce public energy consumption by 10 per cent this year.

From Paris to London, city officials are limiting hours of holiday illumination, and many have switched to more energy-efficient LED lights or renewable energy sources. London’s Oxford Street shopping district hopes to cut energy consumption by two-thirds by limiting the illumination of its lights to 3-11 pm and installing LED bulbs. ■