Around five weeks later, the euro and the US dollar were once again trading one to one. The euro has weakened against the dollar to the level of so-called parity. This is due to the skyrocketing prices of natural gas on the European market.
Euro weakened the most since mid-July
The euro fell 0.4 percent against the dollar to $1.0001 per euro in Monday’s trading. The euro briefly reached its weakest level against the US dollar since mid-July. By Monday afternoon, however, Central European Summer Time had already begun to rise slightly to 1.003 euros per dollar.
Euro weakens due to Nord Stream 1 pipeline shutdown
The main reason for the relatively significant weakening of the common European currency is the increase in fears of another shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which is scheduled to take place from 31 August to 2 September. On Friday, Russian mining giant Gazprom announced this to European buyers.
The official reason is again the maintenance of the pipeline that transports Russian gas to the European Union along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. But retailers fear that the shutdown will take longer, or even that supplies will not resume at all. Natural gas has thus become significantly more expensive on the European market and has come within sight of the absolute record of 300 euros per megawatt hour.
