Well the gas thing is complicated. Nearly every middle european country heavily relied on russian gas bc it was so damn cheap and gave them a competitive advantage. Europe was like a junkie on the needle “oh its not so bad nothing will happen”. But the invasion was a wake up call, and action was taken. There is still much to do, dont get me wrong, but we have come a long way. Russian invasion finally paved the way to collective european action and acquisitions on the gas market and that has helped to prevent blackouts (that Russia no doubt wanted) and tame the insane prices we had for a while a little. Thing is, there isnt many good reliable options for the amounts of gas europe needs. Norway stepped in big time (and they are the only really reliable and democratic country delivering large quantities). Middle east countries come with their own problems and unreliablities and american LNG is very expensive bc of transport (and building LNG terminals in the capacity now required takes time). In the long run, we just need to use less fossil fuels and more renewables, but that cant be done in a year or even 10 years.
I’m sorry but appeasing Russia by building another gas pipeline after they invaded Ukraine in 2014 was an awful thing to do, and it bit them on the arse, rightfully so.
One of your senior politicians involved ended up working for Gazprom.
Before the full-scale invasion, UK, US, and Polish intelligence were saying a war was imminent. Germany (and France tbf) were calling the US/UK/Poland warmongers. Aged quite poorly didn’t it?
And at the start of the war, Germany’s response was “we’ll send 5000 helmets, which will take months to arrive”. A piss-poor level of support. Thankfully they started stepping up as the war progressed and it became clear it was popular to do so.
Add to that Germany, despite being by far the richest country in Europe, isn’t even the biggest supporter of Ukraine in Europe.
Idk why you’re painting Merkel/Germany in such a positive light here. They appeased Russia for ages, Germany only took a tougher stance on Russia well after Merkel was gone.
Well the gas thing is complicated. Nearly every middle european country heavily relied on russian gas bc it was so damn cheap and gave them a competitive advantage. Europe was like a junkie on the needle “oh its not so bad nothing will happen”. But the invasion was a wake up call, and action was taken. There is still much to do, dont get me wrong, but we have come a long way. Russian invasion finally paved the way to collective european action and acquisitions on the gas market and that has helped to prevent blackouts (that Russia no doubt wanted) and tame the insane prices we had for a while a little. Thing is, there isnt many good reliable options for the amounts of gas europe needs. Norway stepped in big time (and they are the only really reliable and democratic country delivering large quantities). Middle east countries come with their own problems and unreliablities and american LNG is very expensive bc of transport (and building LNG terminals in the capacity now required takes time). In the long run, we just need to use less fossil fuels and more renewables, but that cant be done in a year or even 10 years.
I’m sorry but appeasing Russia by building another gas pipeline after they invaded Ukraine in 2014 was an awful thing to do, and it bit them on the arse, rightfully so.
One of your senior politicians involved ended up working for Gazprom.
Before the full-scale invasion, UK, US, and Polish intelligence were saying a war was imminent. Germany (and France tbf) were calling the US/UK/Poland warmongers. Aged quite poorly didn’t it?
And at the start of the war, Germany’s response was “we’ll send 5000 helmets, which will take months to arrive”. A piss-poor level of support. Thankfully they started stepping up as the war progressed and it became clear it was popular to do so.
Add to that Germany, despite being by far the richest country in Europe, isn’t even the biggest supporter of Ukraine in Europe.
Idk why you’re painting Merkel/Germany in such a positive light here. They appeased Russia for ages, Germany only took a tougher stance on Russia well after Merkel was gone.