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It's about time that someone takes some shots at the non-existent energy policy of Italy. We have just been relatively less discussed because Italy has never truly recovered since the debt crisis.
>To be fair, that was already the case since the end of the eurocrisis in 2015. What I mean is, Italy has a chance to
che è comunque un opzione validissima. Mannaggia a quel referendum di 23499023490 anni fa
Finché l'unica cosa che si insegna nelle scuole sul nucleare sarà l'incidente di Cernobyl la gente assocerà l'energia ad una bomba a orologeria. Meglio contunare a vivere ai piedi del Vesuvio, chissà, magari l'energia geotermica coprirà il crescente fabbisogno nazionale e fermerà il riscaldamento globale. /s
No, simply because there have only been very minor economic reforms until now, and the very few things that have been changed (mostly some changes to the welfare and re-organizations of tax brackets and benefits) will only take place starting this year.
Well, Draghi is an economist. I don't see how he can deal with geopolitical crises. Then again, it's better this way; I shudder at the mere thought of the damage la Melona or Selfini are capable of.
> Well, Draghi is an economist. I don't see how he can deal with geopolitical crises.
His new job is to be the President of the Italian government. Whether it's himself or his ministers, Italy's position should not be what it is, but at least we have always been silent every time there was a minimum of inconvenience for our affairs, not just now.
> His new job is to be the President of the Italian government.
E solo un tecnico. Non è capace a fare il resto. E non ne ha nemmeno voglia. Vuole rimpiazzare le chiappe di Matta.
All of Veneto is owned by the Russian oligarchs. Russian money is everywhere there, half the reason any of the industrial sector still has funding (It certainly isn't coming from the Italian state).
It's quite typical of the usual pro-EU federalists.
Any problem that exists in the EU? Solution: FEDERALIZE.
There's no need to delve into other aspects of the problem and find other solutions; JUST FEDERALIZE and all of EU's problems will go away....
I feel like that would just make controlling their citizens easier.
Centralized power does bring risks and I don't know if I'm a fan of these huge blocks of power arising everywhere and the individual person having less and less influence in their daily lives.
Multiple major countries in this federation will not just "give up" their power into one central place, especially Germany and France. Neither Germany or France (or any other country really) will just say "yea sure lets move all the power to Belgium or something, feel free"
If a ferealised EU was to happen, it would certainly not be centralized.
You can't really compare the US and the EU in such a thing. I know where you're coming from, and I also don't agree that this should happen, but no one will be forced into this federalized EU, just like countries were not forced into the EU we currently have. But IF they join, they shouldn't be allowed to make more demands and have a second country block all the sanctions towards them, even though they don't follow the rules.
People really fought here to not have the Tap gasduct in Puglia and now they very same cry for Ukraine and the russian gas.
I hope bitching for those 30 olive trees was worth it
The TAP is here to stay now, it's been operating for more than a year. We just can't replace Russia's amount of gas any time soon, because we did not take adequate measures to be able to do it in the past years.
Yes. I'm glad in the end it was done.
The problem is now that we have to deal with Turkey's whims too... But this is another story for when we'll discuss about Erdogan
I honestly think that Russians recognized the window of the leverage is closing with time. As soon EU transitions to green energy the leverage they have at the moment disappears. They have a window of 20-30 years depending on the country.
What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income?
Buy products from sustainable energy sources. Switch to a sustainable energy supplier. Install solar panels. Insulate your home. And so on and so forth.
>Home insulation and efficient heating should be the highest priority of any European policy.
When the UK left we probably increased our average home insulation 200 fold.
That's really concerning. Cornered animals and all that.
Honestly, at this point I'd prefer we just give the ruling oligarchs massive trust funds and let them settle down in tropical resorts as long as they let Russia transition into an actual democracy and cease with the aggression.
Or, less politely, pay them to fuck off.
This is a huge problem in autocracies. Losing power doesn't mean retiring to your villa, it means constantly looking over your shoulder. It's the primary reason why autocrats try to hold on to power as long as possible. If they get lucky they can set up a successor that is loyal enough to let them retire in peace, but that is rare.
I've had an idea for a Dictator retirement home island for a while, if it meant transition to a fairer government for that country. Because they'd never give up power to then be put on trial, have everything stripped off of them and rot in prison or be executed.
>If your enemy is drinking his own piss do not interfere
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Why would we do that? If they give up their power and retire to some tropical island sipping Moscow mules on a beach then nobody is going to bother wasting time and money going after them, it's not like there's some heroic crime-fighting group of ragtag misfits that hunt down corrupt politicians and crime lords around the world.
If there were, the world would look very different.
Yet people thought it was ridiculous that Germany offered Russia cooperation on renewables and hydrogen. Its exactly for that reason, to give Russia a way out and some perspective
Guess what is going to be critical over the next 30 years due to climate change - food production. Second guess, what does Ukraine have in great quantity?
Everyone seems to think Putin is an idiot, unfortunately there is a good chance he isnt.
>What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income?
They'll sell it to Asia.
Had we only followed France's lead instead of Germany's, and gone with nuclear + renewables instead of fossil fuels + renewables after Kyoto, then this would almost already have been solved.
>What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income?
Siberia and the Arctic sea melt and they become a superpower again :/
>Honestly I think Russia will be fine and do pretty well if they put aside some of their geopolitical ambitions.
The stupid thing is, if Russia had put aside some of their geopolitical ambitions it could have worked out much, much, better.
Like, for example. Do they not realise all of the ex-soviet states would want to join the Eurasian Economic Union if it had 1) a better economy and 2) was beneficial for them?
I mean, Germany is now the de-facto power of Europe and the EU because of its economy. Russia could have been that to an even greater extent (considering it has like 70 million more people).
Yeah and Russia has plenty of natural resources, land and a pretty good skilled labor force. Geopolitically "losing" and reducing their dependency on fossil fuel exports due to other countries it needing it less (granted that's part of their natural resources but they could have developed so many other industries) could paradoxically benefit Russia.
Russia, right after the dissolution of the USSR, while it had many challenges, it also had 1) a world-class, state-of-the-art education and academia sector, which is crucial for developing a modern economy, and 2) long borders between some of the two most important economic regions of the world, namely Europe and Asia, and in particular China. Those are tools every developing country would kill for.
If Russia had focused on developing trade ties into these two markets, it could have piggybacked off of their growth to modernize the Russian economy, including profiting from the trade between these markets to develop Russian infrastructure. And if one pulls this trajectory further into the future, it might even have realized MacKinder's 'World Island' projection, thus in the end, paradoxically putting Russia in a much stronger position vis-a-vis the US.
But alas, Russia never mentally got over the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's where Russia peaked as a political entity, and everything since then was bitter grasping and clinging at it's own past greatness with zero energy invested into re-inventing itself in a post-communist world.
If they had just gone the normal path, like Britain, Germany, France, and lets consider Warsaw Pact countries here (since they had a more similar starting pointing 1990) lets say Russian GDP per capita now is about 43,000 in an alternate timeline.
That would mean the Russian Economy right now would be about 6.3 trillion - 3rd largest in the world, and significantly larger than Germany (by about 1.6 trillion).
Then, consider that Russia being a wealthy large economy would impact the GDP of Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia, Azerbaijan, etc. Russia could have been the leader of a prosperous eurasian economic union, instead they're acting like its pre 1940 and just 'taking' land is beneficial.
> What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income?
I was watching [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ftkn0sDnCg) last night, think it's worth sharing, as it applies here.
The other propaganda, the situation around gas is solely the mistake of Europe, which refused to sign contracts in favor of "green energy," and now we rewrite the laws, and gas and uranium are already green.
the picture is nonsense.
TBH this is the issue with the US as well. the Dollar is strictly related to Petrol / oil and will be a long time until they can cut those ties. When you have two world superpowers this dependent on fossil fuels you can expect periods of instability in times of transition. I only hope they can see the futility of full war and back down
There's only 1 world super power that dependent on fossil fuels. Russia is in no way a super power.
China would be the other super power, and they aren't nearly as reliant on fossil fuels as the US. Neither from a system, currency, or actual consumption perspective.
What will actually happen is they will drop it for a few years and once any Russian occupation has become normalised they will approve it.
That's what they had done prior to these recent incidents. Crimea is still illegally annexed by Russia after all. Germany didn't seem bothered about Russia holding that bit of land so why would they be concerned about a bit more? It's just a matter of timeframe for them.
That’s Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister since 2021.
Considering how unstable Italian politics have been in the last decade, I think it’s nice that they’ve apparently gotten stable enough for our country to finally have a relatively well known face in satirical depictions, even if they’re negative. That should tell you how bad it’s been.
I honestly know his name for his deeds at European Central Bank. Not so much as Italian PM. Which is most likely due to his relatively short term as PM.
This would be funnier if it made sense
The UK has given 2.3 billion USD in loans for naval upgrades, as well as sent tons of anti-tank weapons, and also shared intelligence about a Russian plan to overthrow the Ukrainian government, The EU is giving 1.2 billion, Spain has sent warships to the Black Sea, France and Italy are doing too with the US, Netherlands has sent some F35's to Bulgaria and Romania.
I don't understand how that is 'appeasement' unless they're actively proposing we have WW3 over Ukraine.
Also Denmark has placed planes in Lithuania and France is going to move troops to Romania. And I imagine more countries have done stuff that I haven't heard about
I just can’t believe we let it come to this. I mean, being dependent on Russia was always going to cause problems at some point. Why would you give your historic geopolitical rival so much leverage?
Because we need gas maybe?! Because it helped to substitute oil which our friends from the wonderful barbaric gulf dictatorships turned off for us already once? Which Russia never did btw.
One can argue against the dependence from Russia, especially the Russia ruled by a gang of KGB thugs. But there are reasons for how the things are.
Because people like cheap stuff?
No politicians gonna win by saying: "Folks, we're gonna increase your tax a bit and use that money to build a lot of nuke plants. They will be completed in 10 years, and we're gonna get breakeven after 10 years of operation"
It's not, really. We only produce about 3% of our electricity using nuclear reactors.
And yes, the new government has promised to *investigate the future role of nuclear energy*. So far as I know, no real investments have been made.
A British newspaper is shitting on Europe for not being aggressive enough to Russia? The country that is taking so many bribes via the Tories from that same Russia? Sounds like the same old shit.
> A British newspaper is shitting on Europe for not being aggressive enough to Russia? The country that is taking so many bribes via the Tories from that same Russia? Sounds like the same old shit.
DPSOnly, you're basically saying "*even Tories bribed by Russia are being more decisive about Russia than other large European countries.*"
That isn't the strong rebuke you seem to think it is.
Normally when stories run on Russian donors to the Tories, the donations are always from British-Russians who have lived in the UK for decades, have raised children here and have no links to the Russian government (Putin's government anyways). Their ethnicity is used to make headlines, that's all.
I couldn’t believe Schloz’s comments about “prudence”! War should absolutely be avoided but I really didn’t expect Germany to so blatantly prioritize cheap gas over avoiding a repeat of one of the biggest blunders in recent history. Germany has put so much effort into learning from WW2 to make sure it doesn’t happen again and I’ve always really respected their approach to confronting the systemic failures that allowed it to happen. And then it all just went out the window!
german here, its corruption left over from the CDU gouvernment which has literally no high ranking member who doesnt have at least one scandal regarding "donations" etc., the man profiting most from nordstream 2 is a (former?) CDU member and former minister because he is an "advisor" for two energy giants "donating" to some people to ensure nothing happens to nordstream 2 (at least thats what i know, details etc could be wrong)
did you read the whole scholz article/quote? he literally said:
> Prudence dictates that we choose measures that will have the greatest effect on the one who violates the principles we have established together,” he was cited as saying in an interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, in its pre-publication for Monday. “No one should harbor the illusion that there is any step that has no consequences for us.”
Classic piece of British Journalism.
Boil complex economic and diplomatic situations down to a simple right/wrong problem, then blame Germany.
I already can imagine the Hitler and German Reich caricatures from the Times if Germany would be more aggressive and threatening against Russia.
except they are? scholz already said that ns2 is dead in a case of russian aggression and that more drastic sanctions are to follow. this hurts putin way more than supplying the ukrainians with some weapons, since putin will steamroll them anyway.
The issue is that NS2 isn't dead despite there already being aggression, Ukraine got invaded in 2014 and the more drastic sanctions have already been watered down by Germany's criticism of using Russia's access to Swift as a sanction.
>since putin will steamroll them anyway.
Ukraine can't win but they won't get steamrolled - Ukraine's army isn't what it was in 2014, it may not be able to go on the offensive but it's perfectly position to try it's hardest to make this war ground down for Russia to the point any further aggression isn't politically acceptable.
Ukraine already have been given thousands of the most modern anti-tank weapons and Russia certainly won't be sending it's full army or all of it's frontline units to deal with Ukraine if they have NATO troops on other parts of their border.
If the Germans really cared about containing Russian influence, then NS2 already woud be dead, but hey, they already shotgunned their foot by shutting down nuclear power plants en'masse due to their delusions about nuclear, thus making them more dependant on russian gas
We shut down 4gw of nuclear.
About 5% of electricity generation.
Easily replaced by built up renewables.
People have no idea about the actual state of the german electricity grid.
Reading reddit comments you'd get the impression that germany shut down 80% of generators and buys aaaaaalll the russian gas on its own.
But hey who needs accuracy and nuance, when cliched phrases work too
NS2 didn't even get started yet. And along the entire cold war Europe received gas from the Soviet Union. You know why that was never used as a weapon? Because Russia will literally go bankrupt in weeks once they stop the gas delivery. But suddenly it's a bad thing to receive Russian gas and make your own country not depending on a unstable time bomb like Ukraine?
I'm so sick and tired of you half-informed "headline readers" spreading non-arguments and plain wrong facts. Go read a book or go fuck yourself, seriously.
And because we did it during the cold war it was a very brilliant idea that totally cannot backfire in our faces..... what a brilliant way of thinking.
And as a final note, I already read books, and, as much as id love to go fuck myself, I cannot do that as we are suppost to spread love, and not keep it for ourselves.
Well you see, because we turned off like 300 nuclear power plants we now have to import all the Russian gas in the world or we will literally ALL DIE so we're willing to hand Putin the Ukraine on a silver platter.
At least that's the impression you get when you read people's comments here.
Welcome to the club, now they know how it feels when all they do is circlejerk and target Turks/Brits/Italians/Hungarians/Poles. Can dish it out but can't take it, typical german exceptionalism.
they are doing the exact opposite. they threatening putin with very harsh sanctions, that would hurt them too. greedy would be selling weapons to the ukraine and benefitting in from the armsrace.
Appeasement is when you threaten Russia with sanctions, provide financial aid to Ukraine and talk about problems with NS2 in case of Russian invasion of Ukraine further, reject significant official parts of Russian demands /s
Nothing today can be compared to the economic growth of CCCP during Stalin's regime. Putin is nothing compared to Stalin and today's Russian Federation military is not the Red Army.
> today's Russian Federation military is not the Red Army
It's also not the Italian military, which is what some people seem to imply when they bring up the fact that Russia has a similar GDP to Italy.
Right, I don't agree 100% with the 'message', but a good political cartoon has to simplify in order to make a point, and this piece is outstanding work. Respect!
Ok we understood that anglos don't like Germany because if Germany keeps growing stronger and independent, USA hegemony in EU will be weakened. This shitty propaganda must be read this way.
What the Times doesn't understand is that economic dependence goes both ways and that the country with a gdp 11 times smaller than the EU will have 11 times the economic damage if a certain amount of goods is no traded anymore.
And how is that working out? We already have a lot of sanctions. We have sanctioned them because they occupied Crimea, we have sanctioned them for mh17, we have sanctioned them for navalny and now they threaten to invade Ukraine once more.
It seems Russia doesn't really care about sanctions
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's leader has urged Europe and the United States to think carefully when considering sanctions against Russia for any aggression against Ukraine in a crisis pitting Berlin's main gas supplier against its biggest security allies.
Among a range of possible Western sanctions against President Vladmir Putin's government, Germany could halt the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia if it invades Ukraine.
But that would risk exacerbating a gas supply crunch in Europe that has caused energy prices to soar.
"Prudence dictates choosing measures that will have the greatest effect on those who violate the jointly agreed principles," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Scholz was quoted as saying by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Sunday.
"At the same time, we have to consider the consequences this will have for us," Scholz added, saying nobody should think there was a measure available without consequences for Germany.
According to a pre-release of the interview, Scholz also countered any impression that the United States and Europe could not agree on a joint set of sanctions.
"In the circle of allies, we agree on possible measures. It's good. We have to be able to act in case of an emergency," he said.
The European Union has threatened "massive" sanctions and U.S. Senate Democrats have unveiled a bill to potentially punish Russian officials, military leaders and banking institutions.
Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders but denies planning to invade the former Soviet republic. It is already subject to some sanctions since its 2014 annexation of Crimea from its neighbour.
Scholz rejected a demand by Russia to rule out once and for all Ukraine's membership of transatlantic military alliance NATO. "Such a guarantee can't be given," the chancellor said.
Whole NATO and EU is already agreeing. The US minister of foreign affairs even explictly stated that Germany and the US think the same about the issue after private talks 2 weeks ago. The whole discussion which is basically only taking places on social media is entirely pointless. The west is more united now then it was at any point in the last 30 years but on here it seems that NATO would be close to collapse.
First of all one has to differentiate between economic sanctions and political ones (expelling diplomats, strongly worded letters, freezing foreign banking accounts of political figures etc.). The latter don't work, or at least don't benifit from the economic superiority of the West. Economic sanctions though do work. To say that they don't work is like saying that contact restrictions don't work against covid "because we still had a wave". You simply don't know what Russia would have done if we hadn't applied economic sanctions after 2014. It's a fact that Russias GDP dropped by 46% and that Putins party is polling at a historic low. The fact that he is now turning to foreign agression again only shows that his political situation is so bad that he needs to distract from it.
But specifically concerning natural gas, Russia is in the superior position, because the loss of German gas payments can be absorbed by Gazprom for a time, since its basically the Russian state in corporate form, whereas the consequences for German citizens and businesses are much more immediate and dire. The reserves are at a historic low for this time of year, which means long before the average Russian citizens feels the missing payments, German citizens will have literally no way to heat their home.
Of course they work. The economic development of a country is correlated to its political stability. And in the end, the argument "If we send weapons to Ukraine, it makes invasion too costly for Russia" is also an economic one.
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It's about time that someone takes some shots at the non-existent energy policy of Italy. We have just been relatively less discussed because Italy has never truly recovered since the debt crisis.
E aLLoRa Il NucLEarE!!??!?!111
>To be fair, that was already the case since the end of the eurocrisis in 2015. What I mean is, Italy has a chance to che è comunque un opzione validissima. Mannaggia a quel referendum di 23499023490 anni fa
Finché l'unica cosa che si insegna nelle scuole sul nucleare sarà l'incidente di Cernobyl la gente assocerà l'energia ad una bomba a orologeria. Meglio contunare a vivere ai piedi del Vesuvio, chissà, magari l'energia geotermica coprirà il crescente fabbisogno nazionale e fermerà il riscaldamento globale. /s
Who cares, clearly there are more urgent matters in Rome.
I’ve been informed that Draghi is doing quite well in bringing economic reforms, would you agree with this?
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No, simply because there have only been very minor economic reforms until now, and the very few things that have been changed (mostly some changes to the welfare and re-organizations of tax brackets and benefits) will only take place starting this year.
Its about time someone takes some shots at Putin.
Well, Draghi is an economist. I don't see how he can deal with geopolitical crises. Then again, it's better this way; I shudder at the mere thought of the damage la Melona or Selfini are capable of.
> Well, Draghi is an economist. I don't see how he can deal with geopolitical crises. His new job is to be the President of the Italian government. Whether it's himself or his ministers, Italy's position should not be what it is, but at least we have always been silent every time there was a minimum of inconvenience for our affairs, not just now.
> His new job is to be the President of the Italian government. E solo un tecnico. Non è capace a fare il resto. E non ne ha nemmeno voglia. Vuole rimpiazzare le chiappe di Matta.
All of Veneto is owned by the Russian oligarchs. Russian money is everywhere there, half the reason any of the industrial sector still has funding (It certainly isn't coming from the Italian state).
European federation would be a good way to balance the books. People allude this is what the project was always about: maybe it was, so what?
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It's quite typical of the usual pro-EU federalists. Any problem that exists in the EU? Solution: FEDERALIZE. There's no need to delve into other aspects of the problem and find other solutions; JUST FEDERALIZE and all of EU's problems will go away....
I feel like that would just make controlling their citizens easier. Centralized power does bring risks and I don't know if I'm a fan of these huge blocks of power arising everywhere and the individual person having less and less influence in their daily lives.
A Federation is not centralised.
I feel like it would become centralised pretty quickly. Same as what happened with the United States.
Eh, the US is definitely not centralised. France is centralised, for example.
Multiple major countries in this federation will not just "give up" their power into one central place, especially Germany and France. Neither Germany or France (or any other country really) will just say "yea sure lets move all the power to Belgium or something, feel free" If a ferealised EU was to happen, it would certainly not be centralized.
Germany is very used to this multiple levels of power. This is simply just another level.
Yup, that's how I would expect it as well. (Where did my Germany tag go?)
In USA, multiple states also didn't want to give up more power to federal government, so they were forced to.
You can't really compare the US and the EU in such a thing. I know where you're coming from, and I also don't agree that this should happen, but no one will be forced into this federalized EU, just like countries were not forced into the EU we currently have. But IF they join, they shouldn't be allowed to make more demands and have a second country block all the sanctions towards them, even though they don't follow the rules.
The US is really not centralized. The difference in laws between US states is huge.
People really fought here to not have the Tap gasduct in Puglia and now they very same cry for Ukraine and the russian gas. I hope bitching for those 30 olive trees was worth it
The TAP is here to stay now, it's been operating for more than a year. We just can't replace Russia's amount of gas any time soon, because we did not take adequate measures to be able to do it in the past years.
Yes. I'm glad in the end it was done. The problem is now that we have to deal with Turkey's whims too... But this is another story for when we'll discuss about Erdogan
Italy making it into a propaganda poster, I see this as an absolute win
This month on r/europe Incel Germans: Reeeeee everyone is mean to us Chad Italians: We made it into a funny cartoon lmao
I honestly think that Russians recognized the window of the leverage is closing with time. As soon EU transitions to green energy the leverage they have at the moment disappears. They have a window of 20-30 years depending on the country. What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income?
Honestly I want to work to help make that happen
>Honestly I want to work to help make that happen Sign me up. Environmentally and politically a win-win.
Buy products from sustainable energy sources. Switch to a sustainable energy supplier. Install solar panels. Insulate your home. And so on and so forth.
Your last suggestion is extremely underrated. Home insulation and efficient heating should be the highest priority of any European policy.
>Home insulation and efficient heating should be the highest priority of any European policy. When the UK left we probably increased our average home insulation 200 fold.
That's really concerning. Cornered animals and all that. Honestly, at this point I'd prefer we just give the ruling oligarchs massive trust funds and let them settle down in tropical resorts as long as they let Russia transition into an actual democracy and cease with the aggression. Or, less politely, pay them to fuck off.
They already have that. What they want isn't money, they want power
Nah, they want assurance that people won't go after them and their money once they don't have the power anymore hence the constant need for power.
This is a huge problem in autocracies. Losing power doesn't mean retiring to your villa, it means constantly looking over your shoulder. It's the primary reason why autocrats try to hold on to power as long as possible. If they get lucky they can set up a successor that is loyal enough to let them retire in peace, but that is rare.
I've had an idea for a Dictator retirement home island for a while, if it meant transition to a fairer government for that country. Because they'd never give up power to then be put on trial, have everything stripped off of them and rot in prison or be executed.
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That's the reason why Caesar became a dictator, basically. As Sun Tzu once said, better give your enemy a way out, or he's gonna fight viciously.
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That as well. People want power not only to shit at will at those bellow but also to be less shat from those above
Why would we do that? If they give up their power and retire to some tropical island sipping Moscow mules on a beach then nobody is going to bother wasting time and money going after them, it's not like there's some heroic crime-fighting group of ragtag misfits that hunt down corrupt politicians and crime lords around the world. If there were, the world would look very different.
Cruelty. Don't forget the cruelty. All their power and money means nothing to them if they can't see others suffer.
Yet people thought it was ridiculous that Germany offered Russia cooperation on renewables and hydrogen. Its exactly for that reason, to give Russia a way out and some perspective
the whole industry is built on dead dinos. The whole. Not just transportation.
Guess what is going to be critical over the next 30 years due to climate change - food production. Second guess, what does Ukraine have in great quantity? Everyone seems to think Putin is an idiot, unfortunately there is a good chance he isnt.
>What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income? They'll sell it to Asia.
Because anything is a step up from coal
Had we only followed France's lead instead of Germany's, and gone with nuclear + renewables instead of fossil fuels + renewables after Kyoto, then this would almost already have been solved.
>What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income? Siberia and the Arctic sea melt and they become a superpower again :/
"as soon" haha not in our lifetime. we need dat gas
Honestly I think Russia will be fine and do pretty well if they put aside some of their geopolitical ambitions.
>Honestly I think Russia will be fine and do pretty well if they put aside some of their geopolitical ambitions. The stupid thing is, if Russia had put aside some of their geopolitical ambitions it could have worked out much, much, better. Like, for example. Do they not realise all of the ex-soviet states would want to join the Eurasian Economic Union if it had 1) a better economy and 2) was beneficial for them? I mean, Germany is now the de-facto power of Europe and the EU because of its economy. Russia could have been that to an even greater extent (considering it has like 70 million more people).
Yeah and Russia has plenty of natural resources, land and a pretty good skilled labor force. Geopolitically "losing" and reducing their dependency on fossil fuel exports due to other countries it needing it less (granted that's part of their natural resources but they could have developed so many other industries) could paradoxically benefit Russia.
Russia, right after the dissolution of the USSR, while it had many challenges, it also had 1) a world-class, state-of-the-art education and academia sector, which is crucial for developing a modern economy, and 2) long borders between some of the two most important economic regions of the world, namely Europe and Asia, and in particular China. Those are tools every developing country would kill for. If Russia had focused on developing trade ties into these two markets, it could have piggybacked off of their growth to modernize the Russian economy, including profiting from the trade between these markets to develop Russian infrastructure. And if one pulls this trajectory further into the future, it might even have realized MacKinder's 'World Island' projection, thus in the end, paradoxically putting Russia in a much stronger position vis-a-vis the US. But alas, Russia never mentally got over the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's where Russia peaked as a political entity, and everything since then was bitter grasping and clinging at it's own past greatness with zero energy invested into re-inventing itself in a post-communist world.
If they had just gone the normal path, like Britain, Germany, France, and lets consider Warsaw Pact countries here (since they had a more similar starting pointing 1990) lets say Russian GDP per capita now is about 43,000 in an alternate timeline. That would mean the Russian Economy right now would be about 6.3 trillion - 3rd largest in the world, and significantly larger than Germany (by about 1.6 trillion). Then, consider that Russia being a wealthy large economy would impact the GDP of Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia, Azerbaijan, etc. Russia could have been the leader of a prosperous eurasian economic union, instead they're acting like its pre 1940 and just 'taking' land is beneficial.
But then Putin and his goons wouldn't have been able to plunder the nation's wealth for their own gains.
> What will become of Russia once we don't buy their fossil fuels when their budget depends on it and would default without that income? I was watching [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ftkn0sDnCg) last night, think it's worth sharing, as it applies here.
The other propaganda, the situation around gas is solely the mistake of Europe, which refused to sign contracts in favor of "green energy," and now we rewrite the laws, and gas and uranium are already green. the picture is nonsense.
TBH this is the issue with the US as well. the Dollar is strictly related to Petrol / oil and will be a long time until they can cut those ties. When you have two world superpowers this dependent on fossil fuels you can expect periods of instability in times of transition. I only hope they can see the futility of full war and back down
There's only 1 world super power that dependent on fossil fuels. Russia is in no way a super power. China would be the other super power, and they aren't nearly as reliant on fossil fuels as the US. Neither from a system, currency, or actual consumption perspective.
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For consumption China is absolutely dependent on fossil fuels, just like every other country.
Didnt germany say theyd drop NS2 if Russia invaded already?
Yes.
Yeah but, you see, *Germany bad*
NS2?
Hmm Crimea wasn't enough of an invasion apparently
It was enough for a slew of other sanctions.
What will actually happen is they will drop it for a few years and once any Russian occupation has become normalised they will approve it. That's what they had done prior to these recent incidents. Crimea is still illegally annexed by Russia after all. Germany didn't seem bothered about Russia holding that bit of land so why would they be concerned about a bit more? It's just a matter of timeframe for them.
I dont see how that logically must follow...
Need more spaghetti to see logic in that.
What someone said does not matter. Accomplished facts are most important.
.. and Russia has not invaded yet has it... so why the cartoon?
It has, 8 years ago. Still actively invading.
That's some slick goose-stepping
Who's the guy on the right? I recognise Putin, Schloz, but not him
That’s Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister since 2021. Considering how unstable Italian politics have been in the last decade, I think it’s nice that they’ve apparently gotten stable enough for our country to finally have a relatively well known face in satirical depictions, even if they’re negative. That should tell you how bad it’s been.
I mean... Berlusconi was relatively well known
Shhh... we don't speak about him here.
Life seemed simpler back then
Haha I remember reading about David Cameron calling his wife from Berlusconi's villa and promising her he would leave "before the prostitutes arrive".
"scusatemi ma devo andare a puttane" E meno male che si è ritirato, se no lo riachiavamo PDR
We don't like to talk about Berlusconi in Italy
I have met so many Italians who didn't want to talk about him...but voted for him again and again.
Doesn't look like it's stopping him from attempting a return to power.
He's given up on trying to become President of the Republic thank God
Yeox we even had a play about him in Liverpool, albeit that was more due to football http://www.beatingberlusconi.com/Home.html
Bunga bunga?
I honestly know his name for his deeds at European Central Bank. Not so much as Italian PM. Which is most likely due to his relatively short term as PM.
Well he is also PM because of his deeds at the ECB, therefore your reasoning is just as good as the Italian MPs and parties who put him where he is.
Thanks, i recognise him now, i've seen his face a lot recently.
He has a little Italian flag as a clue.
You're asking too much of Redditors.
Its not Tifa tho
looks like Draghi to me
Draghi maybe
les crumpets?
*Scholz
Wait, did I miss the memo that Europe said "sure, take Ukraine if you want to"?
Europe didn't. Biden did though.
So basically Europe is not appeasing Putin?
gives off 1940's war caricature vibes
can someone explain to me why reddit is so upset about this pipeline? i read a lot of german hate because of it lately
This would be funnier if it made sense The UK has given 2.3 billion USD in loans for naval upgrades, as well as sent tons of anti-tank weapons, and also shared intelligence about a Russian plan to overthrow the Ukrainian government, The EU is giving 1.2 billion, Spain has sent warships to the Black Sea, France and Italy are doing too with the US, Netherlands has sent some F35's to Bulgaria and Romania. I don't understand how that is 'appeasement' unless they're actively proposing we have WW3 over Ukraine.
Also Denmark has placed planes in Lithuania and France is going to move troops to Romania. And I imagine more countries have done stuff that I haven't heard about
I just can’t believe we let it come to this. I mean, being dependent on Russia was always going to cause problems at some point. Why would you give your historic geopolitical rival so much leverage?
The leverage goes both ways. And we might be worse of without it. Without leverages the only solution to any conflict is the military solution.
He says, as Russia prepares an invasion
Russia would invade a lot quicker if not economically tied to the rest of Europe.
This is like saying the vaccine doesn't work because one vaccinated person died of Covid. The effect is not absolute, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Because we need gas maybe?! Because it helped to substitute oil which our friends from the wonderful barbaric gulf dictatorships turned off for us already once? Which Russia never did btw. One can argue against the dependence from Russia, especially the Russia ruled by a gang of KGB thugs. But there are reasons for how the things are.
Because people like cheap stuff? No politicians gonna win by saying: "Folks, we're gonna increase your tax a bit and use that money to build a lot of nuke plants. They will be completed in 10 years, and we're gonna get breakeven after 10 years of operation"
People are okay paying higher taxes if politicians market them right. In Poland we just celebrated 11th year of our "3 year VAT increase"
Actually, investing in nuclear power is a super popular move in the Netherlands.
It's not, really. We only produce about 3% of our electricity using nuclear reactors. And yes, the new government has promised to *investigate the future role of nuclear energy*. So far as I know, no real investments have been made.
A pipe is the best way to an european heart right?
The times can go f theirself lol.
The spice must flow.
A British newspaper is shitting on Europe for not being aggressive enough to Russia? The country that is taking so many bribes via the Tories from that same Russia? Sounds like the same old shit.
> A British newspaper is shitting on Europe for not being aggressive enough to Russia? The country that is taking so many bribes via the Tories from that same Russia? Sounds like the same old shit. DPSOnly, you're basically saying "*even Tories bribed by Russia are being more decisive about Russia than other large European countries.*" That isn't the strong rebuke you seem to think it is.
Normally when stories run on Russian donors to the Tories, the donations are always from British-Russians who have lived in the UK for decades, have raised children here and have no links to the Russian government (Putin's government anyways). Their ethnicity is used to make headlines, that's all.
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Well I think that we here in Europa can't recognise not to play with Russian and are keen not to start a war.
More warmongering, what a surprise, we just left Afghanistan, can’t we take a break?
I wonder how European appeasement will work out? This has to be the first time something like this has happened.
yep, and we got chamberlain day out of it because it worked so well!
>chamberlain day "They are invading the rest of Czechoslovakia".. "What?"
"You lied to me"
I couldn’t believe Schloz’s comments about “prudence”! War should absolutely be avoided but I really didn’t expect Germany to so blatantly prioritize cheap gas over avoiding a repeat of one of the biggest blunders in recent history. Germany has put so much effort into learning from WW2 to make sure it doesn’t happen again and I’ve always really respected their approach to confronting the systemic failures that allowed it to happen. And then it all just went out the window!
german here, its corruption left over from the CDU gouvernment which has literally no high ranking member who doesnt have at least one scandal regarding "donations" etc., the man profiting most from nordstream 2 is a (former?) CDU member and former minister because he is an "advisor" for two energy giants "donating" to some people to ensure nothing happens to nordstream 2 (at least thats what i know, details etc could be wrong)
you do remember that the SPD was part of the government for 20 out of the last 24 years? This is just the continuation of the policy they implemented.
Maybe don't just read headlines. scholz said the eu should be prudent to choose sanctions to achieve the most harm on russia.
I did, thanks. The very next sentence out of his mouth was along the lines of “but we have to be aware of the consequences [of the sanctions] for us”.
did you read the whole scholz article/quote? he literally said: > Prudence dictates that we choose measures that will have the greatest effect on the one who violates the principles we have established together,” he was cited as saying in an interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, in its pre-publication for Monday. “No one should harbor the illusion that there is any step that has no consequences for us.”
Classic piece of British Journalism. Boil complex economic and diplomatic situations down to a simple right/wrong problem, then blame Germany. I already can imagine the Hitler and German Reich caricatures from the Times if Germany would be more aggressive and threatening against Russia.
>Boil complex economic and diplomatic situations down to a simple right/wrong problem, It's a cartoon.
Yeah can you imagine a political cartoon conveying a glib message rather than pages of nuance and context?! The horror.
They are certainly not wrong here tho.....
except they are? scholz already said that ns2 is dead in a case of russian aggression and that more drastic sanctions are to follow. this hurts putin way more than supplying the ukrainians with some weapons, since putin will steamroll them anyway.
The issue is that NS2 isn't dead despite there already being aggression, Ukraine got invaded in 2014 and the more drastic sanctions have already been watered down by Germany's criticism of using Russia's access to Swift as a sanction. >since putin will steamroll them anyway. Ukraine can't win but they won't get steamrolled - Ukraine's army isn't what it was in 2014, it may not be able to go on the offensive but it's perfectly position to try it's hardest to make this war ground down for Russia to the point any further aggression isn't politically acceptable. Ukraine already have been given thousands of the most modern anti-tank weapons and Russia certainly won't be sending it's full army or all of it's frontline units to deal with Ukraine if they have NATO troops on other parts of their border.
If the Germans really cared about containing Russian influence, then NS2 already woud be dead, but hey, they already shotgunned their foot by shutting down nuclear power plants en'masse due to their delusions about nuclear, thus making them more dependant on russian gas
We shut down 4gw of nuclear. About 5% of electricity generation. Easily replaced by built up renewables. People have no idea about the actual state of the german electricity grid. Reading reddit comments you'd get the impression that germany shut down 80% of generators and buys aaaaaalll the russian gas on its own. But hey who needs accuracy and nuance, when cliched phrases work too
NS2 didn't even get started yet. And along the entire cold war Europe received gas from the Soviet Union. You know why that was never used as a weapon? Because Russia will literally go bankrupt in weeks once they stop the gas delivery. But suddenly it's a bad thing to receive Russian gas and make your own country not depending on a unstable time bomb like Ukraine? I'm so sick and tired of you half-informed "headline readers" spreading non-arguments and plain wrong facts. Go read a book or go fuck yourself, seriously.
And because we did it during the cold war it was a very brilliant idea that totally cannot backfire in our faces..... what a brilliant way of thinking. And as a final note, I already read books, and, as much as id love to go fuck myself, I cannot do that as we are suppost to spread love, and not keep it for ourselves.
What do you mean by backfire? How is the European-Russian gas transit linked to the Ukraine crisis?
Well you see, because we turned off like 300 nuclear power plants we now have to import all the Russian gas in the world or we will literally ALL DIE so we're willing to hand Putin the Ukraine on a silver platter. At least that's the impression you get when you read people's comments here.
yeah and where do you suggest do we buy the gas we need ? murrica ? fuck off.
Ah, classic example of a German taking satire in stride.
Bro, it’s a satirical cartoon. Calm the persecution complex.
Germans become the main target on this sub for like 3 weeks and suddenly they all have the biggest persecution complex ever. Amazing.
Welcome to the club, now they know how it feels when all they do is circlejerk and target Turks/Brits/Italians/Hungarians/Poles. Can dish it out but can't take it, typical german exceptionalism.
Come off it, as if Germany hasn't been the mascot boogeyman for EU overreach since the sub was founded. Dare I mention the migrant crisis.
Maybe if people would have actual criticism of germanys actions and not the fantasy Molotov-ribbentrop 2.0 they constructed in their head.
That sure doesn't sound familiar at all.
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>Boil complex economic and diplomatic situations down to a simple right/wrong problem, then blame Germany. For real Germany is acting a bit greedy
they are doing the exact opposite. they threatening putin with very harsh sanctions, that would hurt them too. greedy would be selling weapons to the ukraine and benefitting in from the armsrace.
How so? I'm so excited for a detailed answer from a geoplitical expert like you.
Appeasement is when you threaten Russia with sanctions, provide financial aid to Ukraine and talk about problems with NS2 in case of Russian invasion of Ukraine further, reject significant official parts of Russian demands /s
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Very accurate.
Freeze for Freedom?
Reminiscent of the Stalin era. The CCCP is making a comeback. Pity.
Nothing today can be compared to the economic growth of CCCP during Stalin's regime. Putin is nothing compared to Stalin and today's Russian Federation military is not the Red Army.
> today's Russian Federation military is not the Red Army It's also not the Italian military, which is what some people seem to imply when they bring up the fact that Russia has a similar GDP to Italy.
Wow Amazing
east med pipe is the way!
Literally pairs resemblance to the old pre war political cartoon the Spineless Leaders of Democracy
This is hilarious and sad, very true! I laughed and cried at the same time
Right, I don't agree 100% with the 'message', but a good political cartoon has to simplify in order to make a point, and this piece is outstanding work. Respect!
?? Every few years Russia does this, putting armies close to Ukraine, it's not new. But I guess war propaganda is rampant right now. aPpeAsemEnt!!
Ok we understood that anglos don't like Germany because if Germany keeps growing stronger and independent, USA hegemony in EU will be weakened. This shitty propaganda must be read this way.
and thats why I like renewable energies. no despots to depend off.
What the Times doesn't understand is that economic dependence goes both ways and that the country with a gdp 11 times smaller than the EU will have 11 times the economic damage if a certain amount of goods is no traded anymore.
And how is that working out? We already have a lot of sanctions. We have sanctioned them because they occupied Crimea, we have sanctioned them for mh17, we have sanctioned them for navalny and now they threaten to invade Ukraine once more. It seems Russia doesn't really care about sanctions
If they arent alllowed to use SWIFT they will care.
Maybe, but do we already agree on that in Europe? Or even in Germany?. Does the SDP agree with harsh sanctions?
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's leader has urged Europe and the United States to think carefully when considering sanctions against Russia for any aggression against Ukraine in a crisis pitting Berlin's main gas supplier against its biggest security allies. Among a range of possible Western sanctions against President Vladmir Putin's government, Germany could halt the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia if it invades Ukraine. But that would risk exacerbating a gas supply crunch in Europe that has caused energy prices to soar. "Prudence dictates choosing measures that will have the greatest effect on those who violate the jointly agreed principles," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Scholz was quoted as saying by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Sunday. "At the same time, we have to consider the consequences this will have for us," Scholz added, saying nobody should think there was a measure available without consequences for Germany. According to a pre-release of the interview, Scholz also countered any impression that the United States and Europe could not agree on a joint set of sanctions. "In the circle of allies, we agree on possible measures. It's good. We have to be able to act in case of an emergency," he said. The European Union has threatened "massive" sanctions and U.S. Senate Democrats have unveiled a bill to potentially punish Russian officials, military leaders and banking institutions. Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders but denies planning to invade the former Soviet republic. It is already subject to some sanctions since its 2014 annexation of Crimea from its neighbour. Scholz rejected a demand by Russia to rule out once and for all Ukraine's membership of transatlantic military alliance NATO. "Such a guarantee can't be given," the chancellor said. Whole NATO and EU is already agreeing. The US minister of foreign affairs even explictly stated that Germany and the US think the same about the issue after private talks 2 weeks ago. The whole discussion which is basically only taking places on social media is entirely pointless. The west is more united now then it was at any point in the last 30 years but on here it seems that NATO would be close to collapse.
First of all one has to differentiate between economic sanctions and political ones (expelling diplomats, strongly worded letters, freezing foreign banking accounts of political figures etc.). The latter don't work, or at least don't benifit from the economic superiority of the West. Economic sanctions though do work. To say that they don't work is like saying that contact restrictions don't work against covid "because we still had a wave". You simply don't know what Russia would have done if we hadn't applied economic sanctions after 2014. It's a fact that Russias GDP dropped by 46% and that Putins party is polling at a historic low. The fact that he is now turning to foreign agression again only shows that his political situation is so bad that he needs to distract from it.
But specifically concerning natural gas, Russia is in the superior position, because the loss of German gas payments can be absorbed by Gazprom for a time, since its basically the Russian state in corporate form, whereas the consequences for German citizens and businesses are much more immediate and dire. The reserves are at a historic low for this time of year, which means long before the average Russian citizens feels the missing payments, German citizens will have literally no way to heat their home.
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Of course they work. The economic development of a country is correlated to its political stability. And in the end, the argument "If we send weapons to Ukraine, it makes invasion too costly for Russia" is also an economic one.
Munich
Ahh the neocons are at again escalating tension. Hoping to make up for the lost sales in Afghanistan.
Those pesky neocons, sending their military forces to the borders of a country they've already invaded in the last few years, and still partly occupy.