This will be a very interesting winter for European cooperation and politics. A lot of southern European countries whose economies we’re in the gutter in the eurocrisis had to accept harsh austerity so they could receive mostly German funds to survive. Now roles are reversed. Southern Europe is in general not depended on Russian gas.
Will these countries return the favour now Germany is in big trouble, caused by naive and frankly dumb energy policies the last ten years? Will Spain say things like “you’ll only get your next LNG shipment on condition x and y” like Germany did with them? The Greeks had to sell their port to the Chinese and starve their pensioners by dictate of the Trojka with Merkel as figure head. Similar things happened in Italy, Spain and Portugal. I’m curious how they will handle this.
Of course I’m hoping for a sense of unity and camaraderie in face of a common enemy, but I do not think we should underestimate the anger that brewed in south Europe during the Eurocrisis.
Inb4 we spend even more taxpayer money on trying to keep the gas price low instead of using that money to encourage people to reduce gas consumption.
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This will be a very interesting winter for European cooperation and politics. A lot of southern European countries whose economies we’re in the gutter in the eurocrisis had to accept harsh austerity so they could receive mostly German funds to survive. Now roles are reversed. Southern Europe is in general not depended on Russian gas.
Will these countries return the favour now Germany is in big trouble, caused by naive and frankly dumb energy policies the last ten years? Will Spain say things like “you’ll only get your next LNG shipment on condition x and y” like Germany did with them? The Greeks had to sell their port to the Chinese and starve their pensioners by dictate of the Trojka with Merkel as figure head. Similar things happened in Italy, Spain and Portugal. I’m curious how they will handle this.
Of course I’m hoping for a sense of unity and camaraderie in face of a common enemy, but I do not think we should underestimate the anger that brewed in south Europe during the Eurocrisis.
Inb4 we spend even more taxpayer money on trying to keep the gas price low instead of using that money to encourage people to reduce gas consumption.