How would you like the government to tell you to spend no more than five minutes in the shower, or even push you to share the bathroom with a friend? This is happening in Germany, where energy norms now seem inevitable. The crisis caused by Berlin’s dependence on Russian gas and oil makes our own cost-of-living crisis pale in comparison.
There was alarm across the continent this week when Russia shut down the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, ostensibly for “routine maintenance,” until next week. Will the Kremlin turn it on again? Vladimir Putin promises that Russia is still “ready to fulfill its obligations”, but few now believe the Butcher of Bucha.
Not only the German public but also their government is panicking about what will happen next. The gas is stored in huge underground freezers, but unless usage is drastically reduced, supplies are expected to run out by January.
If so, Germany would face its worst recession since the 1940s, with the economy shrinking by more than 12 percent, output in the leading auto industry plunging by 17 percent and up to six million jobs in risk. Family fuel bills are already set to rise by €2,000 a year and there are plans to provide emergency accommodation in town halls for those unable to heat their homes.
That’s why Robert Habeck, the Green Party vice-chancellor, is urging families to cut back on consumption. “I’ve never taken a bath [as long as] five minutes of my life,” he says. The energy minister brags about turning off the heat all day in the winter because he’s always outside. It’s cold comfort for families and the elderly who don’t have a warm minister’s office to go to. However, some landlords are already threatening to turn off the heating in the blocks, and local authorities are even turning off the street lights.
The Germans were lecturing their neighbors on environmental virtue. Not anymore: fossil fuels like gas are now considered “clean” while coal-fired power plants are back in business.
A bitter blame game has erupted over the disastrous decision to exit nuclear power a decade ago, leaving the country entirely dependent on Russia. Once idolized Angela Merkel’s reputation is in tatters, but her successor Olaf Scholz is held responsible by two-thirds of voters for failing to protect energy security. The entire German political establishment was caught with their environmental pants down. Even the normally docile press cannot ignore the rank hypocrisy of an elite that preached net-zero to the rest of Europe but is now moving in the opposite direction.
This collective hypocrisy goes far beyond energy policy. Despite their crocodile tears for war to save their own skins, Scholz and his coalition are actually throwing Ukraine under the bus. Apart from a handful of howitzers, Berlin has neither given Kyiv heavy weapons nor increased their production.
Meanwhile, Scholz’s much-heralded increase in military spending announced last February is proving to be a flash in the pan. Germany’s depleted armed forces will be cut even further next year.
Even the supposedly hawkish Greens foreign minister Analena Berbock is now just wringing her hands, saying “there’s nothing to be done”. The prospect of rationing has already led to a decline in public support for supporting Ukraine: As food and energy prices continue to rise, 38 percent of Germans do not want punitive action against Russia.
Scholz tried to appease his NATO allies and Putin, but won the respect of neither. In Eastern, Central and Northern Europe, meanwhile, Germany under Scholz is more despised and distrusted than at any time since 1945.
Either there is a general collapse in Berlin with a real possibility that the ruling “traffic light” coalition will collapse, or that it will capitulate to Putin.
Last week Scholz and his colleagues toasted the fall of Boris Johnson. But the German chancellor faces a nightmare scenario of his own; his glee may prove short-lived.
Once admired and envied, Germany is now a textbook example of how much damage a misguided foreign and energy policy can cause.
Daniel Johnson is the editor of TheArticle
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