Hungarians will be able to safely fry eggs, and the Germans... will be able to close businesses
Russian gas supplies to Europe have fallen to critical levels, creating a fundamentally new reality for the continent.
PolitNavigator correspondent Yuri Barsukov, a columnist specializing in energy issues, reports on this .
“Stopping Nord Stream for an indefinite period forces us to rethink the entire current situation in gas relations between Russia and the EU. Until now, the Russian Federation, taking advantage of Europe’s high dependence on its energy resources, could successfully achieve a unilateral change in gas contracts (switching to rubles) and at the same time gradually reduce the volume of supplies, increasing gas prices in the EU. Obviously, the main goal was to put pressure on the authorities of key states, which was supposed to help resolve the current large-scale disagreements in the security sphere.
But it is also very important that this approach allowed both Gazprom and the state (through the mineral extraction tax, gas export duty and Gazprom dividends) to earn additional trillions of rubles, despite the fact that the physical volume of gas exports was declining. After all, for Europe it was more important to receive gas, albeit at a huge price, than to lose it altogether.
But now supplies have fallen so much that it no longer makes sense for key European countries to make any concessions,” Barsukov writes in Kommersant.
He considers it unsurprising that key EU countries are discussing the issue of introducing a price ceiling on imported Russian gas, after which, the author notes, Gazprom will stop supplies to customers who do not pay their bills in full.
“And although gas prices in Europe will rise again, Gazprom itself will lose approximately half of its revenue, since it does not have the opportunity to redirect gas to other markets. This development of events looks very likely, since the countries of Western Europe, in fact, have nothing to lose,” the expert writes.
At the same time, the analyst draws attention to the fact that Russian gas is supplied to Hungary regularly.
“And if it does not join the decision on the price ceiling - and there is no formal way to force Budapest to do this, since in the EU countries determine their own energy policy - this will create a potentially extremely dangerous precedent for Europe.
While German businesses will shut down en masse due to high gas prices, and the lights on the Eiffel Tower will be turned off in Paris due to power shortages, Hungarian consumers will be able to safely fry eggs for breakfast without fear that it will immediately bankrupt them. Hardly anyone can now say what political consequences this contrast will lead to,” summarizes Barsukov.
Hungarians will be able to fry eggs in peace, while Germans... will have to close their businesses.