June 21, 2022
Since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion, European leaders have accused Russia of weaponizing their energy exports and last week announced two “major” energy infrastructure projects with Israel.
The projects will include a gas and hydrogen pipeline spanning the eastern Mediterranean and an “underwater power cable linking Israel to Cyprus and Greece,” the Financial Times reported.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, visited southern Israel to make the announcement and blamed Russia for deliberately cutting “off its gas supplies to Poland, to Bulgaria, to Finland, to Dutch companies, to Danish companies, in retaliation for our support to Ukraine.”
TRENDPOST: Ms. von de Leyen failed to mention that Russia’s decision was based on crippling sanctions imposed by the West and these countries’ unwillingness to pay for Russian gas in rubles. Without the resources to back up her words, she said the Kremlin’s attitude “only strengthened our resolve to break free of our dependency on Russian fossil fuels.”
Winners and Losers
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that the sanctions imposed by Western countries failed.
“The idea was clear: crush the Russian economy violently,” Putin said during the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, according to The Wall Street Journal. The paper said Russia looks at the forum as an answer to the World Economic Forum held in Davos.
“They did not succeed,” Putin said.
The paper said the Russian economy has been bolstered “by a windfall through the rising value of its energy exports, though poverty is spreading and inflation is eroding the spending power of ordinary Russians.”
Putin said the U.S. tries to present itself as God’s messenger on earth, as though all of its foreign policies are divinely inspired.
“They do not seem to notice that new powerful centers have formed on the planet. We are talking about revolutionary changes in the entire system of international relations,” he said.
The FT pointed out that European countries have been looking for alternatives to Russian gas. The EU imported 155 bcm of gas from Russia last year, accounting for about 40 percent of the bloc’s overall consumption.
Israel’s Energy Ministry said the gas will flow into Egypt’s LNG terminal through a pipeline under the Mediterranean Sea and will be transported by tanker to Europe, The Associated Press reported. The report said Egypt’s natural gas facilities have been essentially collecting dust since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Simon Henderson, an energy policy fellow at the Washington Institute, told The Wall Street Journal that the agreement is a “positive step at a time of energy crisis,” but is not a panacea.
Recent Comments