Just as Europe plans to limit Russian energy prices, it encounters resistance from countries such as Germany.
“Politico News Network” reported that European Commission President von der Leyen proposed five measures to deal with Europe’s current energy crisis, including mandatory measures to reduce electricity demand; set revenue caps for low-cost power generation companies and subsidize windfall profits consumers; a solidarity tax on fossil fuel companies making huge profits; support for struggling utilities; and a price cap on Russian gas.
“Political News Network” related reports. Screenshot of the official website of “Politician News Network”.
Von der Leyen criticized, “Russia is actively manipulating the energy market” and “is an unreliable supplier”. Before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports came from Russia. Now it has dropped to 9%. Putin gets money to keep the war going.
It’s just that Von der Leyen’s sudden move has aroused disgust from all countries. “Politico News Network” quoted an unnamed EU diplomat as criticizing, “Von der Leyen rushed to discuss before the energy ministers meeting on the 9th, and countries were largely kept in the dark, and everyone learned this before the meeting started.” .
European Commission President Von der Leyen. AP picture.
Aside from the raid, Von der Leyen’s lack of support from Germany, Europe’s largest economy, was another reason for its defeat. Some EU diplomats bluntly stated that Germany was the “problem” in reaching a natural gas price limit agreement, accusing “they took so long to consider issues such as price limit”.
“Politico News” described the German government as “skeptical” of the price cap initiative, and even before the meeting advocated that the EU focus on taking “less aggressive measures” to curb energy prices, such as a windfall tax on energy profits.
According to German officials, Germany’s reluctance to limit prices is largely not related to its own interests, but to the situation of regional energy supply. Berlin is worried that the price limit will provoke retaliation from Moscow, which will cause Russia to completely cut off natural gas supplies to the EU, hitting Central European countries including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. Some EU diplomats agree with this view, arguing that Slovakia and the Czech Republic are small countries and highly dependent on Russian natural gas.
It is worth noting that Politico News also cited EU data to refute, saying that Germany’s natural gas stock is actually lower than that of countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Even according to the latest data released by the German Federal Statistics Office on the 2nd, Germany’s overall natural gas reserves are about 83%, and the storage target before the arrival of the heating season has not yet been completed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin. AP picture.
In the face of the EU’s intention to limit prices, Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced his behavior as stupid when he attended the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum. Putin said: “This is another stupid act, another non-market decision with no future. If it goes against our interests, we will not supply anything at all, there will be no gas, no oil, no coal, no fuel oil, Nothing. These countries are not qualified to point our finger at us today. Let them change their minds. We will not do anything that is imposed on us”.
Putin continued that, compared with LNG transported across oceans, Russian pipeline natural gas has strong competitiveness. Europe does not need Russian gas, and it will not affect Russia. The world’s energy demand is so great that Russian gas is sufficient to meet the needs of any country.
For Western countries to accuse Russia of “weaponization” of energy, Putin believes that it is “nonsense”. He emphasized that “although Russia is willing to restart the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline tomorrow, it is actually blocked. As for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Russia only needs to press a button to start it”.
PoliticoNews’ coverage of The Fox and the Wolf. Screenshot of the official website of “Politician News Network”.
Putin also quoted the content of the famous Russian fairy tale “The Fox and the Wolf” and joked that “Russia has only one word to say, freeze, freeze, wolf tail.”
“The Fox and the Wolf” tells the story of the little fox who encouraged the big wolf to fish on the ice with his tail, which caused his tail to freeze and eventually cut his own tail.
Nathalie Tocci, head of the Institute of International Affairs (IAI), an Italian think tank, also believes that in the current situation of Russia’s sharp decline in gas supply, it is not meaningful to discuss setting a price ceiling.