After 3 years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Europe announces plan to ban all Russian gas imports
https://kyivindependent.com/after-3-years-of-full-scale-war-in-ukraine-europe-announces-plan-to-ban-all-russian-gas-imports/Open linkView original on lemmings.world500
Comments48
I wish lemmy was less like reddit, and that commenters actually skimmed the articles or knew anything about the situation beyond the headlines.
But hell, here goes, I'll try to use small words and explain things for you guys:
If they instantly turned it off without a replacement, a lot of people would have died. And even if a country government tried, their own citizens would riot over the idea that old people would die.
Coal is already banned.
Oil imports have dropped from 27% to 3%
In 2021 the gas accounted for 45% of imports in the EU, now it's 19% and the plan is to have it at zero by 2027.
There’s been a big influx of users from Reddit and with it came the low effort one liner zingers and people allergic to reading the linked articles.
I do really like how a lot of people here post articles give a summary below their link. While it’s definitely not required, it is super helpful and makes it harder for people to just form opinions and start blabbing in the comments based on a headline.
I'm definitely guilty of not opening the article pretty often, and I really love when posters put a summary/highlights/entire article when it's small in the body of the post. I actually do read/skim these pretty consistently vs opening and reading every single article in the feed.
Things get a little shittier for awhile every time there's a mass migration, but it seems like most communities do a decent job holding newbies to a higher standard than reddit (read: any standard). Eventually Lemmy gets better again.
I suspect it may inevitably end up like Reddit. The problem IMO is comment visibility. Even if you're not trying to farm karma, people like their comments to be visible. Everyone wants to have their voice heard. And it seems that short "zinger" comments and jokes are the most effective way to make that happen. The current community does support high effort quality comments well, but I think as we get diluted with more users it's a slippery slide. I hope I'm wrong.
I think the rest of us need to apply pressure against that trend. I try to call out assholes in a civil fashion, at least so it makes it harder to be one, and I don't upvote comments that don't add to the conversation. I can't downvote them since I'm on blahaj, so downvote them extra hard for me!
This only works if the influx of new users stay relatively low. See the Digg Exodus of how reddit got fucked up because Digg expelled their users too fast.
A lot of people did die, they were just Ukrainian instead of western European
Ukrainian do not vote for European governments though
So it's been 3 years and their plan is another 2.75 years away.
This better stay in place once the war is over, no matter how it ends
Canada here: you can have ours!
It's a nice idea but the difficulty is in getting it there.
LNG tankers!
Natural gas blimps! It's already lighter than air after all...
Sometimes, my genius is almost terrifying
Yes, and it can still be vetoed by our union friends from Slovakia or Hungary. Hell, even my own government in the Netherlands may try to sabotage this, since we've got the most worthless bunch of idiots ever in charge.
USA here. I'll trade you any time you want.
I'm sure you will, and I wish you all the best. At least our bunch is more of "talk much do little" variety. It helps that it's a four party coalition, who can't even agree on the day of the week.
I heard it's Logsday
Always is
Hey, if it helps seal a trade, my guy is the same color of your national team jerseys.
"New EU legislative proposals need approval from the European Parliament and a reinforced majority of EU countries."
That is different than sanctions which need to be unanimous (bit of an odd discrepancy)
The import of coal from Russia has already stopped, they are in the process of ending oil imports, but the situation is different when it comes to gas.
Although the share of Russian gas in the EU dropped from 45 percent in 2021 to 13 percent now, Russia still earns 23 billion euros per year from it. Despite the restrictions, Russian energy exports remain an important source of income for the Kremlin.
The EU member states and the European Parliament still need to approve the plans. The expectation is that the plan will lead to fierce debate, especially from Hungary and Slovakia. These countries are the most pro-Russian and still rely heavily on Russian energy.
But Commission President Von der Leyen says that the energy coming to Europe must not contribute to the war against Ukraine. "We owe that to our citizens, our businesses, and our brave Ukrainian friends." 👏🏽💪🇪🇺🇺🇦
source
Von der Leyen’s Plan to End Russian Gas Imports by 2027 (REPowerEU) (Sources: Reuters, AP News, Financial Times, Euronews, Kyiv Independent) Key Measures:
To overcome opposition from Hungary and Slovakia, the EU will use qualified majority voting, so no single country can veto the plan. Each country must submit its own phase-out plan, tailored to its situation. The EU is offering financial tools under the REPowerEU plan to help countries support their companies exiting Russian deals and phase out Russian energy. These include grants and loans from the recovery fund, support from the European Investment Bank, and targeted funds for energy infrastructure and renewables, like Hungary receiving €700 million in grants and applying for €3.9 billion in loans to upgrade its energy system.
About damn time.
This is so funny cuz it actually has the potential to bankrupt Russia, all because they chose to invade a nation that represents at best marginal economic power.
Russia chose to invade a nation that had recently discovered large reserves of natural gas - more than enough to supply Europe's needs while they transitioned to alternatives - and that sat astride the pipeline that Russia uses to provide their gas to Europe. Even though Russia has not proved capable of conquering all of Ukraine, their occupation of the Donbas region has prevented Ukraine from becoming a viable natural gas competitor in the European market and kept their primary source of revenue alive, at least in the short term.
If we actually manage to pull it off it's a pretty decent disincentive. Invade neighbor for resources? No one will buy those resources from you.
Obviously not sufficient on its own, but seems like a good place to start.
Lukoil in the USA is American owned (as a franchise) and operated and does not use Russian oil. We don't import any Russian oil to the US. Some money does go overseas but Lukoil is (nominally) a private company so seems to have avoided sanctions. Overall I'd say there are bigger fish to fry.
After 3 full years... only now doing it...
Nonono, they plan to do it. Might take anorher 3 years for execution.
There is a theory that the USD as global currency is at risk of being replaced due to BRICS. Often the RMB is posited as the successor to the dollar, but I don't think it is possible to use a currency that is not openly traded, nor for which we have insight into how its value is set (not derived by the market, but set by the country itself) as a vehicle for secure, stable exchange of value.
Of course, the current administration is doing a good job of running the USD down, but even with that I don't see how any other currency can replace it for the foreseeable future...
Full disclosure, I am not an economist
Ya gotta have the currency in order to spend it. If a Nation runs out of USD while they still need NG (or anything else traded in USD) then they're going to have a bad time.
Possibly but the U.S. Federal Reserve has the ability to blackhole a LOT of dollars and if the inflows exceed their ability then the price of NG will climb until it balances.
If you doubt me then line up this chart of US NG Exports with this chart of USD DXY. The effect predicted by the strategy isn't visible.
Frankly I'm not sure there's enough NG demand in the world to tank the USD via purchases.
That's a pretty fancy way of saying "We are going to use our money to buy things we need." I mean that's sorta to be expected.
It's also not a comment on "value of the dollar is about to beaten into the ground". There doesn't seem to be a basis to support the theory that purchasing too much NG will cause the US Dollar to decline in value.
The USD will likely decrease in value but it will happen because of Republican stupidity, not due to mass purchases of goods from US companies.
In another couple of years. If Hungary and Slovakia are willing to play along (they aren't).
"New EU legislative proposals need approval from the European Parliament and a reinforced majority of EU countries."
That is different than sanctions which need to be unanimous (bit of an odd discrepancy)
Slovakia is already balking.
Balk all they want, the resolution will still be binding to them. If they don't like it they can leave the EU and take Hungary with them.
Good for the EU. People often need a common threat to come together
now its multiple threats , russia and the USA.
At the moment, that is only one threat.
I'm sorry for what my country is doing...
Wow a plan!
Prepare for the plan!
Yes, ma'am, preparing for the plan!
About damned time. They need to do that here (Japan) as well.
When Trump makes you look like an idiot you know you've screwed up.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZH6zhh_1rCw
Then Germany shutting their nuclear power down in order to focus on wind and solar, which has to be one of the dumbest mistakes made in the last century, which dramatically hurt places like Africa from which they stole their supply of coal. Meanwhile spain is having black outs due to their renewable usage, due to not having the massive energy storage required for 100% uptime.
Idk why you're being downvoted. I mean I don't like the Trump short so idk if it's factually credible or not but it is true that they opened themselves up to be dependent on fossil fuels and I think russian gas.
Stupid boneheaded decision to shut down nuclear as well.
That's not at all what's happening.
Spain said they didn't have the storage capacity with renewables. Germany did shut down nuclear plants and did open coal plants to supplant its energy supply.