Germans feel that unaccountable elites have ceded control of their country’s destiny to Putin. The more they have to pay him for Russian gas, the bigger the war chest with which he will commit genocide in Ukraine. Forcing Germany to be complicit in a colossal crime against humanity is a diabolical twist on the revenge Putin is now exacting from Europe for supporting Ukraine. According to the Economist’s Christian Odendahl, at current prices Germany would need to spend 8.4% of its GDP on natural gas. So far it’s been just 1 percent. Preparations are already underway to limit or even turn off central heating, forcing residents to seek shelter in schools or town halls. The country has been trying to reduce its reliance on natural gas with a campaign to cut household bills, and a massive national effort has brought gas storage levels to 81%. Food prices, meanwhile, rose at a rate of nearly 15 percent in July. Those who fear they cannot afford to heat their homes or feed their families are prey to anger and rage.
Actions have consequences…or do they?
Few predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine, let alone the devastating consequences for Europe. But the German people are dawning that the seeds of the present crisis were sown for a quarter of a century from 1998 to 2022, under Angela Merkel and her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder. These were the years of plenty for Germany, when Berlin dominated the European Union, ensuring its export economy benefited from the single currency while offloading the social costs to its poorer neighbours. But Germany’s dirty secret was cheap Russian energy. Under Schroeder – who became one of Putin’s “useful idiots” – German industry began to abandon its post-war dependence on coal and nuclear power in favor of Russian natural gas and renewables. In 2011, after the Fukushima accident, Mrs. Merkel announced that all German nuclear power plants would be shut down. It was a pyrrhic victory for the Greens but it was supported by all the major parties. Public opinion had been turned against nuclear power in the 1980s by the Soviet-backed “peace movement”. Now the Greens are the cornerstone of the Scholz coalition. Even in the country’s current predicament, Robert Habeck, the Green Vice-Chancellor and Environment Minister, refuses to reverse the exit from nuclear power to ease the energy crisis, although it is still possible over time for them to be reactivated some nuclear power plants. But Berlin is demanding that 26 other EU member states make huge cuts in energy use this winter to help Germany – to the chagrin of the Spanish and others, who are not dependent on Russian gas and are recalling lectures from Berlin during during the eurozone crisis regarding actions having consequences. For decades, the Kremlin acted as Germany’s geopolitical drug dealer, tempting Berlin to become increasingly addicted to the energy that powered its manufacturing, pharmaceutical and chemical plants. Now that Germans are about to go cold turkey, they are discovering how cynically the national interest was betrayed by politicians and captains of industry. With Schröder as the salesman, a new Nord Stream 2 pipeline was built under the Baltic Sea — with the blessing of Mrs Merkel, who fended off Anglo-American pressure to cancel what was seen as a threat to European energy security. Last year, as Russian tanks massed on the Ukrainian border and NATO warned of an imminent invasion, Gazprom redoubled its efforts to keep the flagship project on track. The Russian energy giant pumped €192m into an environmental foundation set up by Manuela Schwesig, the Social Democratic premier of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania – the state that hosted Nord Stream 2 and stood to gain the most. He proceeded to denounce the US for its opposition to the pipeline, arguing that US sanctions were purely self-serving.
