how does Germany getting gas from Russia let them "control the EU"?
It's not getting gas that's indicative. It's getting gas intentionally bypassing the other EU countries and Ukraine with Nordstream 1&2. Thus enabling Russia and Germany to squeeze eastern EU.
Honest question: do you generally follow world events and not know this? I always wonder what the political and historical consciousness is in the west.
>to maintain its gas blackmailing power over Europeans
You throw around the word "blackmail" as if this is established fact.
Please tell when Russia has ever blackmailed Europe using gas?
The only times when gas supply to Europe has been disrupted, were due to disputes with Ukraine (who has been found to divert EU gas to themselves).
And in this case, only the gas intended for use by Ukraine was reduced.
Supplying gas directly from Russia to Germany is intended to create more reliable supply, by removing transit through dishonest and thieving country.
> Resist going for "Clearly, Russia!". Just spitballing here, but why not a German opposition group? Norway? Poland? Any activist group opposed to EU dependence on Russia? Shit, why not Danish anarchists, for that matter?
Realistically, it would have to have been a military operation. Causing explosions in the middle of the sea is rather difficult. And probably near impossible for your average terrorist group.
Personally, I suspect it's the US. It does have the earmarks of a Russia operation tho. It's just deniable in a weird way while they still get the credit for it.
However, what does Russia gain by reducing the dependency on Russian gas? Before they were trying to get Germany to open up Nordstream 2 since it's complete but now that's not possible. Gas prices go up but if you're ability to sell gas is limited that doesn't help much.
On the otherside are the US, who are well known for operating shady secret missions to affect geo politics in their favour. The fact it happened on the day another gas pipeline opens would make it seem like it's possible that someone wanted the other gas pipeline to become more popular and used instead.
87.7% of EU gas storage is filled[1]. Which is pretty close to how it is usually every winter. Germany is at 91%.
Russia wasn't supplying gas via Nord Stream 1, claiming it needs maintenance and sanctions preventing this maintenance. Which is well...true[2]? Six turbines were stuck in Canada due to sanctions.
There are many ways to not supply gas to Germany and not break the contract that does not involve damaging nearly 20 billion dollar infrastructure (NS1 + NS2).
There a reasons and motives to do so, buy IMO none of them outweigh the damage.
> That possibility is long gone.
No, it's not. You contradict yourself in the very next sentence.
> How can they even consider a natural gas pipeline with Russia
Germany closed all their nuclear stations. They need lots of energy for heating and industries. Russia can take whole Ukraine if it wants and Germany will still buy Russian gas.
> do you think the gas taps will just be turned back on?
Well, kind of, whatever the outcome, Russia will have depleted much of its military strength and will need to reequip its army. That costs money, so they will be more or less forced (or even willing in case of a coup against Putin) to sell gas to the EU.
The real question is more what the EU will do. Most likely, the EU (or each country individually) will really want to diversify their energy sources and maybe be more self-reliant to not be subject to one actor like it is right now.
Nuclear may be one of the responses, but it's far from the only one.
On a side note, Russia is providing ~25% of the EU's uranium right now (in fairness, this dependency is easier to circumvent compared to the gas one).
> As soon as the pipe gets full of water, it's basically dead in the water (pun intended). Lookup how these pipes get built. The sections are connected and hermetically sealed above the water, and then lowered so that no water gets in.
No, Nord Stream 1 pipeline was filled with water during construction.
> If you turn off the water tap at your home, that doesn't mean the water is no longer delivered. It's still there, practically at your home. Not sure what "permissions" you are referring to.
It wasn't open. There was no gas delivered and sold to Germany. "permissions" means that the German authorities would have to allow the Nord Stream AG to deliver natural gas over Nord Stream 2 into the German market. Such a permission was never given.
> I am not talking about Ukraine.
I was talking about Russia. Russia has removed themselves from the European market because of their war against the Ukraine.
> I mean, c'mon, there was a moment when Europe actually expected to receive gas, but not pay for it due to sanctions - how idiotic is that?
There was no such moment.
> I just don't get what the European leaders were expecting
European leaders were expecting that Russia would be a peaceful neighbour. One which one wants to have trade with.
> ruin business relations
Right, Russia ruined its business relations to the west. A customer can choose where to buy from. Europe chose to reduce and minimize economic relations with Russia.
Sure, selling into a foreign market is a privilege. Russia lost that privilege. Given that the trust for Russia is currently zero, it will take many years to repair that - which will be much more complicated than repairing the pipelines.
I'd like to add some context. Neither the EU nor Germany ever sanctioned imports of Russian natural gas from any pipeline. Only seaborne crude oil imports were restricted with the goal to put the price of Russian oil exports under pressure on the global markets. It's the Russian government that decided to shut down gas deliveries well in advance of the explosions in September 2022. Also, if they wanted to sell gas to Western Europe, there are two other routes with plenty of capacity left through Poland or Ukraine.
> but if Russia has the off switch for Germany's economy
You are completely missing the part where Germany has already been running on Russian gas for decades, from land based pipelines. I think that you might be unaware of how permeable to natural gas the iron curtain had been.
The power Russia gains from Nordstream isn't the power to stop supplying Germany (they could already do that and then go broke), the power they gain is the power to keep supplying Germany while playing with the off-switch for their dearly loved "Slavic brother nations". The geopolitical relevance of Nordstream is not Russia selling more gas, it's about Russia deriving more influence per unit of gas.
Ever wondered why Poland is refusing so hard to switch from dirty lignite to cleaner gas? It's not just money and miners, far from that.
The whole issue is self inflicted by the German government. So far Russia adhered to the supply contracts. The stakes are high for Russia here. If Russia would not adhere to the contract even in these times, other contract partners like India and China would likely reconsider their long term contracts.
It was Europe which decided not to by cheap Russian gas anymore and to ground their own economy. Instead Europa has to buy gas now on the spot market for about ten times the price. So Russia is more than happy by adhering to the contract and watching Europe to inflicting the damage themselves.
If the West would have decided to buy their NLG somewhere else 5 years ago, Russia would have invaded the Ukraine even with less considerations.
> Ukraine now buys all <Russian> gas as reverse flow from European Union states
Ok let me get this straight. Russia has been supplying up to 39% of all of Europe's natgas nonstop since 1973, throughout the Cold War, collapse of the USSR, 2014, and including the current everyday Ukrainian gas, which is also being supplied by Russia without fail (then reversed from Europe, to avoid outright theft), but somehow it's a very dangerous weapon. Ok.
> Germany has seized control of a local unit of Russian natural-gas giant Gazprom, saying it will do 'what is necessary' to maintain energy supply in the country
this action doesn't make much sense then, does it?
Hm... why? Because the Germans, out of goodness of their hearts, want the Russians to keep dumping the annual $1.5bil+ transit fees into Ukraine? It's the same exact dependency on the same exact gas, just delivered through a bunch of countries each grabbing a cut, instead of directly.
> Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of leverage against Germany.
As I understand it this leak is in the new NordStream 2 pipeline and NordStrem 1 is unaffected, so they can still supply gas in to the EU through NS1.
Germany probably could not refuse delivery without political fallout from increased gas prices, right? It could have been a “Cortés burning the ships” moment, with elements inside NATO (maybe even within the German government) cutting off Russian gas irrevocably in order to prevent domestic considerations from influencing German decision makers.
The story of “Russians so crazy they blew up their own pipeline that gave them huge cash flows plus undue influence on European politics” just makes absolutely no sense to me.
> Furthermore, doing it in a way that takes the blame off the German government is beneficial to the German government.
No, the German government knows it needs to weather the winter, and have been relying (and continue to rely upon) Russian gas to fill their reserves. Their goal was to have their gas reserves filled to 95% capacity by November, and they appear to have been at around 75% before Russia started playing games with Nord Stream 1 last month. Of all the states most negatively impacted by this, Germany is probably #1 (yes, even more than Russia).
> sword that Russia has dangling over a part of continental Europe
Ah, those mean Russians, force-feeding the poor Europe their poisonous gas. Reminder: the Western European countries voluntarily entered into this relationship and have been buying the gas for many decades. They are absolutely free to buy their energy from anywhere else in the world. Case in point, that's how France currently gets 25% of their natgas and they have been happily living with this "dangling sword" for 45 years, why would they do that?
It's not getting gas that's indicative. It's getting gas intentionally bypassing the other EU countries and Ukraine with Nordstream 1&2. Thus enabling Russia and Germany to squeeze eastern EU.
Honest question: do you generally follow world events and not know this? I always wonder what the political and historical consciousness is in the west.
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