London —- Americans paying a record $4-plus a gallon for gasoline are feeling the pinch this summer, but it's even worse for Europeans.

Angered by soaring fuel prices, Europeans are protesting. And those protests have taken a toll on individuals and companies by creating food shortages, blocking highways and causing the deaths of two people in Spain and Portugal.

Motorists are paying the equivalent of $10 a gallon in France, more than $9 a gallon in Britain and more than $8 a gallon in Belgium.

Tens of thousands of truckers already are on strike or threatening to strike in Italy, Spain, France, Britain and Portugal.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged motorists not to panic as tanker drivers supplying Shell service stations threatened to launch a four-day strike starting Friday.

"The most responsible thing the public can do is continue to buy as normal," he told reporters.

In France, truckers plan a massive national strike beginning Monday. A go-slow convey of up to 200 French truckers caused gridlock Monday in Bordeaux by creating nearly 20 miles of traffic backups. In Italy, truck drivers are preparing a strike to begin June 30.

Jerome Cordier of Unostra, the French union of trucking companies, told London's Guardian newspaper that the recent protests marked a new phase of coordinated strikes across Europe. Officials fear that the protests could spur widespread disruptions during the summer holiday season.

"We're taking this up a gear and focusing on the European dimension," he said.

Fuel costs in Europe have long been much higher than in the United States, mostly as a result of fuel taxes that account for at least half the price —- and sometimes more than 70 percent, depending on the country —- that motorists pay.

"Every time the price of oil goes up the amount of tax goes up, and it's the motorists who suffer," said Roger Lawson, London region coordinator for the Association of British Drivers. "The government should consider reducing the tax or at least not allowing it to go up any more."

Britain's finance minister, Alistair Darling, has said that a planned 2-pence per liter rise in the fuel tax (the equivalent of about 15 U.S. cents per gallon), due in October, could be delayed because of the rising costs of oil.

Amid warnings that the price of oil could soar to perhaps $250 a barrel within 18 months, EU officials plan to meet next week to consider solutions to surging food and fuel costs.

But experts say there isn't much the European Union can do.

"What the EU can do is quite limited because this is really a member-states issue because member states set fuel taxes," said Adam McCarthy, associate director of Energy Policy Consulting in Brussels, Belgium. "And if a member state tries to lower or even freeze fuel taxes they'll then be left with a massive hole in their budget."

McCarthy, who says he now spends nearly 60 euros —- or about $93 —- to fill his Volvo, said he expects protests to continue across Europe as drivers become increasingly frustrated.

In Spain, the situation was particularly tense this week.

Spanish consumers started stockpiling food Wednesday over concerns that an ongoing truckers' strike that has disrupted deliveries might cause food shortages.

A three-day protest has resulted in more than 2,500 trucks blocking a Spanish-French border crossing.

Workers at Madrid's main food wholesale market said this week that supplies of meat, fish and fruit would start to thin out soon.

Spain got tough Wednesday with striking truckers who have disrupted food and fuel supplies, deploying riot police to lift blockades of a border crossing with France and a major highway outside Madrid and making dozens of arrests. But unions representing the strikers vowed to press on, rejecting a package of measures presented by the government to end the protests.

Automakers in Spain said most of the country's automobile plants, including those of Nissan, Renault and Mercedes-Benz, have had to cut or halt production for lack of spare parts.

One protester was killed Tuesday night when a van drove through a picket line in the southern Spanish city of Granada. Another protester was killed in Portugal when a truck failed to stop at a picket line.

Meanwhile, McCarthy said there are some who believe skyrocketing fuel prices might actually be a good thing in the long run.

"It's changing driving habits and causing car companies to explore newer fuel-efficient technologies," he said. "These things might have happened anyway, but high fuel prices are causing them to happen more quickly."

In Britain, new studies show that the demand for fuel has dropped by as much as 20 percent over the past year as more motorists opt for mass transit over driving their own cars.

"Certainly people here are becoming concerned over fuel costs," Lawson said. "Many people are cutting down on their long leisure trips."

The Associated Press contributed to this article

 Staff 
IT COULD BE WORSE
Europeans buy their gasoline by the liter, paid for in local currency such as the euro or the British pound. Here are the equivalent prices in U.S. dollars:
BRITAIN: $9.50 
SPAIN: $7.73
BELGIUM: $8.10
GERMANY: $10.50
TURKEY: $11.00
FRANCE: $10.00
(prices are per gallon)

Graphic includes a map of Europe, locating and comparing the above countries.

Sources: Motorists' reports from countries and U.S. Department of Energy