An emergency meeting of EU energy ministers on Friday meant to reassure both energy companies and the European public regarding soaring prices and severely strained supply amid Russian countermeasures in response to Western sanctions is off to shaky and fractured start. Rather than reassure anyone of anything, it's already clear the issue of a proposed cap on gas prices has only divided the bloc further, akin to the same prior question with oil.
Leading the way in pointing out the flawed logic of the plan, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto pointed out the blowback would be worse than the sting aimed at Russia. "If price restrictions were to be imposed exclusively on Russian gas, that would evidently lead to an immediate cut-off in Russian gas supplies. It does not take a Nobel Prize to recognize that," he said.
Echoing prior words of Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, he said "The plan that would impose a price cap exclusively on Russian gas coming via pipelines is entirely against European and Hungarian interests."
© JOHN THYS / AFPSlovakia Minister of Economy Richard Sulik (L) talks with Hungary State Secretary for Development of Circular Economy and for Energy and Climate Policy, the ministry of Innovation and Technology Attila Steiner (R) during the Special European Energy Ministers Council on Russian gas and petrol crisis at the EU headquarters in Brussels on May 2, 2022.
Comment: What tripe. It was the EU who, as the behest of the U.S., turned off the taps in a bid to bring the Russian economy to its knees. Russia, having plenty of other customers, simply directed supplies that would have gone to the EU elsewhere. They are fulfilling all their current contractual obligations, but have declined to enter into new agreements. Like any good business, Russia is "firing" its more troublesome clients.
- Putin: US imposed sanctions aim to force Russia out of Europe's energy market
- Left in the cold: Russia responds to European Commissioner for Energy Union
Síkela said ministers were hoping to send "a clear message that will calm down the markets" by day's end. This as over the course of the six-month Ukraine war Russian gas supplies to the collective EU have been cut by a stark 80% amid ominous reminders that "winter is coming".
And yet, with Italy, Poland, Hungary and Greece standing out as among the most vocal opponents of such a cap among at least 10 EU countries who have voiced their reservations, FT notes that some governments are "warning that singling out Russia could push President Vladimir Putin to cut supplies to Europe completely."
One senor EU official cited anonymously in FT summed up the ongoing dilemma as follows:
"Everyone is afraid of the domino effect" if Russia cuts off supply because European states are so interconnected, said a senior EU official. "If you cut off Russian gas only, you infuriate Russia without affecting other suppliers and if you are, say, Portugal who imports no Russian gas, what can you take back to voters?"For this reason, the meeting is not expected to delve too deep or dwell too long on the divisive price cap plan, even though Belgium is among those claiming that just "technical" issues would have to be worked out, but that a cap is achievable. Meanwhile, initial indicators point to nothing substantial coming out of the Friday meeting:
- EU MINISTERS: MORE WORK NEEDED ON IMPORTED GAS PRICE CAP IDEA
- MINISTERS ASK EU TO DESIGN EMERGENCY LIQUIDITY FACILITIES
But back to reality, Hungary's Szijjarto said it best upon entering the meeting: "This morning ... we will do our utmost to make Brussels finally understand that gas supplies are not an ideological or political issue, but one of hard-core physical reality."
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For the EU States, taking a page from The Declaration of Independence and making a slight tweak to it to include the WEF:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes;
and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of the WEF Subsidiary is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States...
Bonus article: 'Russia’s Sergey Glazyev introduces the new global financial system' [Link]