The word of the day now in the European Union is embargo. Against Russia of course, since they are now categorized as the ultimate evil in the world, but at a large extent, against its own citizens too. Since this virtue signaling embargo has more unintended consequences than intended.
So we are at the sixth package of economical measures (I kinda lost count of this non-sense, it might be five, it might be seven) and after cancelling Russian coal imports, we proceeded here in the EU with the oil as well, but not completely, and almost we reached the natural gas. But only almost. Since it's getting harder and harder not to state the obvious, and that is: the more EU is trying to punish the Russian economy, the more shit is coming back raining on the regular Europeans heads.
Ursula von der Layen, this true heroine of the European Union, was trying from the first minute to show some balls against Russia and hit their economy really hard. But as the regular politician who is more flashy and less connected with the reality, she soon discovered that things are not exactly going to the plan.
The coal might be an easy move, but going higher in importance, like oil and natural gas... well, stupid decisions lead to a lot of economic pain. For the Europeans, to say at least.
Next up should theoretically be a gas embargo but this is proving even more controversial among leaders.
"No embargo can be imposed as far as gas is concerned," Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told reporters after a two-day special summit of EU leaders concluded on Tuesday afternoon.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/06/02/explained-why-an-eu-embargo-on-russian-gas-might-be-a-long-way-off
The complete cut off of the Russian natural gas is a wacky idea, and no matter how they insist with climate change - global warming propaganda or with let's punish Russia for the war in Ukraine, some obviously facts need to be taken into account:
- Latvia: 93% natural gas imported from Russia
- Estonia: 79%
- Bulgaria 79%
- Hungary 61%
- Austria 64%
- Germany 49%.
This is not an exhaustive list of the countries getting their gas from Russia; and no matter how these politicians are trying to sell us the idea that alternatives are available, we know that's not true; natural gas is not euro that can easily printed out of thin air by the ECB, and even if partially the EU will find some gas (like US imports), that definitely won't be at the same price as before. That means even more economic pain for the Europeans, with subpar results of this strategy against Russia.
So now, even the dumbest high level officials are facing reality. And what they do? They try to put some lipstick on the pig and make it actually part of the anti-Putin strategy.
“If we would completely, immediately, as of today cut off the [Russian] oil, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin might be able to take the oil that he does not sell to the EU to the world market, where the prices will increase, and sell it for more – and that would fill his war chests,” the EU leader (Ursula von der Layen - n.a.) said in an interview with MSNBC earlier this week
So we're against natural gas in general (global warming) and against Russian natural gas in special. We're fighting to have a strategy to cut off our imports. But noooo... we're going to still import it, since that will show them!
A complete shit of some sort of damage control. Like with the COVID business, EU high rank officials are completely off and instead of making EU stronger, they do everything to make it weaker. And then, in their minds somehow, to assume control of it.
From a Russian source:
According to Von der Leyen, “sanctions are hitting the Russian economy hard,” but a complete embargo would cause severe damage to the European economy.
Nevertheless, Von der Leyen insisted that overcoming dependence on Russian oil and gas is one of the EU’s major goals in the long run, especially considering Europe’s green transition goals
Just remember, before the war we had green transition. The perfect reason to print trillions and trillions of euros in the same of some imaginary noble goals.
If you, for some reason, don't trust the Russian source, then read the European counterpart one:
The leaders of Portugal and Belgium as well as the Hungarian government have also said they wouldn't support a gas embargo.
Meanwhile, above this cacophony of European Commission decisions, two things are actually happening:
- Russians seems not so impress by the embargo and they're actually acting on their own, cutting countries one by one from their gas/oil supply: Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, Denmark and at some extent Netherlands. Italy and Germany seems to have some off the records, under the table agreements, to continue the imports (and paying in rubles)
- energy is getting more and more expensive, even here in the Netherlands, a country that is really proud with the green energy production. It's unreliable and it's hardly enough, but it's green. And yeah, it's not cheaper, but hey! we save the planet and punish Putin in the process!
