Inflationary pressures are steadily increasing across the West, mainly due to fuel and energy. It is characteristic that inflation in the US is already at 7.5% and gas prices at gas stations have increased by 50% during the presidency of Joe Biden. Despite the impressive price increase, a liter of gasoline is around 0.85 euros in Europe.
We place particular emphasis on what will or will not happen in Ukraine in the next twenty-four hours, with the result that we lose the overall picture.
The crisis in Ukraine continues anyway, because the problem seems more complex than the Cyprus or the Middle East. There is an objective basis for the perpetuation of the crisis, while those involved do not show a good political mood. Everyone makes internal political calculations and comes to different conclusions and conflicting choices.
Russia has already annexed Crimea, controlling eastern Ukraine through Russian-speaking separatists, and is considering whether to take control of Odessa to annex separatist territories to Crimea and Transnistria, which is also controlled by Moldova. Russian-speaking separatists.
The Duma has already suggested to Putin that it recognize the independence of Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine, as it has done with Russian-speaking separatists in Georgia.
In addition to Putin’s aggression, there are objective grounds for a tough confrontation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union created 15 independent states overnight, while 25 million Russians woke up in foreign states. The Russians, the Russians of Ukraine – it is a matter of definition – amount to 8 million, with the total population of the country at 43 million.
It is obvious, then, that if there is no “hot” confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, there will be the so-called “frozen” confrontation according to the standards applied by Moscow in various regions. It claims influence or control and deliberately leaves open in the long run the wounds created by the first conflicts.
I am not writing this to see who are the good or the bad of the matches that are in progress or have been “frozen”, but to understand that the EU should have been energetically covered in terms of relations with Russia.
The EU covers 40% of its gas needs from Russia, while absorbing on a daily basis more than one third of Russia’s oil production. Four million barrels per day with a total production of eleven million.
It is obvious, then, that the EU should have set the rules for its energy cooperation with Russia before pressing the green transition button. Not only does Russia have – in many cases – competing interests with other European powers, but the green transition sets a strategic goal of fossil fuel dependence by 2050. So how can Europeans expect Russian producers gas and oil will calmly wait for their economic end, in the name of saving the planet at the initiative of the EU?
The Russians are taking advantage of the situation based on their interests. In previous years, when international fuel prices had fallen, the EU avoided concluding new long-term agreements with Russia and preferred to meet its needs, to a large extent, in the spot market. Now that the economic, energy situation is favorable to Russia, Putin is limited to implementing the agreements that have been signed and avoids meeting the additional needs of the EU. in the spot market – despite the extremely good prices – increasing for strategic reasons the energy anxiety of the EU.
It is not enough that the EU began the green transition without settling its accounts with Russia, on which it depends energetically, but the EU member states. have a different approach to the issue.
Germany seeks to boost its comparative economic advantage within the EU by developing energy cooperation with Russia through the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Poland and the Baltic Republics oppose the German plans, arguing that the development of energy cooperation would finance Russian aggression and weaken them strategically, along with Ukraine.
Hungary’s super-conservative prime minister, Orban, who is facing a difficult election on April 3, visited Moscow, met with Putin, secured preferential gas and made… statements in favor of Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
In this context of European energy Babel, Greece is one of the losers. The NATO alliance to deal with Russia in the Ukraine crisis has led to improved US-Turkish relations and the seemingly definitive abandonment of much-discussed plans to build the EastMed gas pipeline.
In addition, Greece has made – for reasons of national security – a choice to develop a strategic cooperation with the United States. This means that Greece supplies Russian gas at “stingy” prices and alternatively liquefied American gas at even higher prices.
