war, the pandemic has created bottlenecks in the economy due to an abrupt restructuring of production. Weber refers to this after-war period because then, inflation was tackled by strategic price controls that were still left during the war (Weber, 2022). Additionally, she claims that implementing price controls would have multiple positive aspects. Firstly, it would win time to deal with the pandemic-created bottlenecks in the economy. Secondly, monetary stability would improve, which is needed for several societal goals, like mitigation of environmental decay, carbon neutrality, and economic resilience (Weber, 2022). Paul Krugman, an opinion writer for The New York Times, responded to Weber in a tweet, calling her idea “truly stupid” (Showalter, 2022; Reed, 2022). After many critiques, Krugman deleted his tweet and apologized for his harsh tone (Krugman, 2022). Lawrence W. Reed echoed Krugman’s opinion and took it even further by mocking Weber (Reed, 2022). He claims that price controls do not work and are a disguised way of controlling people, not prices, because the increasing prices are only the consequence of inflation, not the cause. Because monetary authorities inflate, prices rise after, according to Reed. In an interview, Weber defends her stance on price controls (Gaal, 2022). To counter the critique that indicates that price caps or controls disincentivize people to save energy, she stated that this depends on the cap you implement. She advocates for a cap on necessary amounts, and any overconsumption needs to be paid with higher market prices. Another argument against price controls Weber denounces is that putting a price cap on one good will lead to controlling all prices. However, as Weber says, most countries already have a politically predetermined price for many essential goods, which has yet to lead to price controls on everything (Gaal, 2022). Implementation of price controls in Europe: the case of Spain and Portugal The high inflation of 2021 and 2022 has urged the EU member states to take measures. Spain and Portugal imposed a cap on natural gas prices (News Desk, 2022b; Fonseca, 2022). They received permission from the European Commission because the Iberian Peninsula is not as connected to the European power marker as other member states (News Desk, 2022a). Spain and Portugal are less dependent on Russian gas, as they mainly import from Algeria and produce much of their electricity through renewables. This measure will help around 70% of businesses and about 40% of households