“It had long been known that the gas cut might be one of the ways in which Moscow would respond to sanctions once morest it for the war with Ukraine; that is why, for months, European countries have been looking for other alternatives”.
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The truth is that those led by Vladimir Putin They announced the hit. According to The confidentialthe pipeline Nord Stream 1 operated “at 40% of its capacity since mid-June” because, according to Kremlin and from the sanctions imposed by CanadaThey were unable to repair turbine vital to the system. This Monday the 11th, at 7 am in Moscow, the flow was cut off.
The Russians estimate that the service should be resumed on Thursday July 21, but the Europeans do not trust. In fact, the panic has been such that until Canada gave his arm to twist: expected promptly issue a permit for the turbine damaged is repaired and returned, as soon as possible, to Moscow.
The one who will suffer the most from this measure will be Germany. According to your Department of Energyregarding half of households need the resource for heating, while “several large industries totally depend on this fuel”.
In parallel, the Russian energy Gazprom ad which will reduce by a third the shipment of gas to Italia.
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forms of pressure
Tucci points out that, to avoid depending on the wishes of Russiaseveral European countries have already launched the search for alternative sources of gas. Africa It is one of the places where they have set their sights.
“But the problem will always be the same: they will be associated with authoritarian regimes, hybrids or countries with weak democracies. These measures do not solve the problem”. Italiafor example, already hill agreements with Algeria, Azerbaijan y Qatar.
The specialist knows that Russia may not resume the flow of gas; however, he does not consider that the decision responds solely to this. For him, the move seeks to see how Europe responds.
“Now it is summer, the temperatures have been very high, and there are several months to go before winter, which theoretically will arrive in November or December. The coldest months will be January and February, and then we will see if they start to cut off the supply and the excuses. It will be a hard blow”.
The problem, says Tucci, is not to find other sources of gas either.. “There is a paradox: you can find them, but they will be very expensive. Can’t counter the price hike”. The reaction of nations such as spain. According to The Economistthe nation bought “Russia a historic gas figure in June” to the point of becoming “your second supplier”.
“What we have been experiencing for a long time is a hybrid war: the fight is no longer just on the battlefields, but economic issues are involved as a way of pressuring”.
Because just as it was the objective of the West and its sanctions once morest Russia, Moscow also seeks to foment discontent within Europe.
“Everything has risen in price, from the basic basket to goods and services. That, with a skyrocketing inflation, affects public opinion”.
“In some countries, like Italy, there are already parts of the population that ask for peace at any cost and do not care regarding Russia or Ukraine. It is a selfish way of asking for peace. Namely, hitting the economy has caused the positions that used to be pro-Ukrainian to begin to change”.
change of customs
The position is confirmed by General Association of German Landlordswhat argues that the “sharp rises in energy and heating prices may turn into a threat to social peace in the country”.
According to the organization, until May, “energy costs [subieron] 37% due to the war in Ukraine” and this, in turn, “represents an increase of 508 euros per year for a person living alone and 938 euros for a family of 4 people”.
That is not the worst. They smella very powerful German real estate group, has proposed “lower the heating temperature at night to 17 degrees”, which would reduce “consumption by 8%”. Along the same lines, a German cooperative announced to its tenants that “in the future there will only be hot water in the early morning, at noon and at night”, while the heating will not work until September.
The latter, of course, is already seen as illegal, and it is not the only thing that accounts for the problems that are to come.
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz plays with the possibility that people take shorter showers and with more cold water, with a view to lowering consumption. Similarly, the possibility of limiting hot water and other legal measures to promote energy savings is also being evaluated, as well as injecting public money into companies that need it.
“El País” adds: “Meanwhile, the Executive accelerates the construction of two of the four floating liquefied natural gas terminals (LNG, for its acronym in English) in the North Sea, with which it will import the fuel by ship, and is drafting laws to promote renewable energy and abandon dependence on fossil fuels as soon as possible”.
