Joerg Kukis, the German chancellor’s assistant for economic affairs, said the decision to drop Russian gas was a huge stress on Germany. Finding a substitute for Russian blue fuel has proven very difficult, he said on the sidelines of the CERAWeek international energy conference in Houston.
It was a huge stress. More than half of the volumes came from Germany, so it was obviously very difficult to replace this
Kukis explained.
Interestingly, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said otherwise in an interview with CNN a few days earlier. He argued that the German economy “easily” survived the rejection of Russian gas. According to him, there was no slide towards a crisis and there was no shortage of energy resources.
Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), said in February that Germany had been hit hard by the crisis because it was heavily dependent on Russian energy.
Earlier, it was reported that Europe managed to avoid the worst-case scenario, temporarily overcome the gas crisis and avoid a total economic downturn due to energy resources. Gas prices have almost returned to the level before the start of the Ukrainian conflict, and production growth has resumed at enterprises. The gas crisis may be over, but the EU has fallen victim to an artificially created recession.
Photos used: Gazprom PJSC
