⛽️ What will happen if Russian gas flows to Europe stop?

Amid hostilities in Ukraine and the avalanche of the European economic sanctions against Russia, Russian gas has been flowing to Europe, including the transit via Ukraine, without interruption.

For now, it looks like Russia-Europe gas trade has been in the eye of the storm (an area of calm weather at the centre of a strong cyclone). But can it remain immune to the greatest geopolitical crisis of this century?

📝 Writes Vitaly Yermakov, Expert with the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, Higher School of Economics.

🔗 Russian gas exports to Europe: In the Eye of the Storm

#EconomicStatecraft #Europe #sanctions #gas

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🏰 The new security system in Europe will be based on mutual hostility.

But this will be a variant of hostility that precludes provocative behaviour. Such behaviour is possible only in a situation where no one believes that the other side will attack you. After the outbreak of hostilities on February 24, there is no such belief among the NATO countries anymore.

👉 On the one hand, this will entail an increase in the military spending of European states and a change in the geography of the forward deployment of NATO forces and assets. They will be closer to Russia's borders.

👉 But, on the other hand, there will be an increased responsibility for the use of these forces and means. Any incident will provoke a crisis that does not correspond to the vital interests of European states.

The result of the system of checks and balances will be a "cold peace" - the best possible option for today, writes Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

🔗 Towards a 'Cold Peace' in Europe

#ModernDiplomacy #coldpeace #NATO #Europe #Ukraine

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇪🇺🇺🇦🇷🇺 The EU-Russia relations have returned to hostility and, accordingly, all ties that are not really of fundamental importance for the EU countries are being curtailed.

However, so far this is only a reaction to the fact that Russia’s behaviour may deprive a united Europe of a very important potential source of resources for development — Russia itself, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

🔗 War of European Integration

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Europe

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🇨🇿❌🇷🇺 The Czech Republic has been used as a “laboratory” of the de-Russification project.

We are, therefore, witnesses of a paradoxical situation when the instigation to hatred against the Russians, calling for a coup in Russia or repression against the Czech “dissent” are tolerated, whereas statements regarding Russia's self-defence or the existence of the US biological laboratories in Ukraine might be criminalised.

The social atmosphere has become irrational and paranoid. The political elites have used the upheaval to the final crackdown against Russian influence, de-Russification of the economy, education, research, and other spheres of life, and finally sever the ties with the “archenemy”.

The experiences of the last weeks show that the Czech liberal democratic elites have opted for a specific kind of “liberal authoritarianism” and resistance to pioneers of a new era of international relations – China, Russia, and other countries of the “Rest”.

Whereas the Czech Republic has chosen the withering past, Russia has chosen the future, writes Ladislav Zemanek, Analyst of the China-CEE Institute, established by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Budapest.

🔗 De-Russification and 'Liberal Authoritarianism': The Czech Choice

#Russophobia #Europe #CzechRepublic

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🏰 Europe’s main problem is its lack of even elementary self-sufficiency in terms of resources.

That is why for Europeans, territorial expansion is an even more inevitable foreign policy choice than for other advanced industrial powers like the United States or China, or industrially-lagging Russia and India.

Therefore, the acquisition by the Europeans of new military capabilities will almost inevitably lead to an increase in their aggressiveness, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

🔗 Europe and the Atomic Bomb

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Europe #Germany

@valdai_club — The Valdai Discussion Club

🛢🏰 Summertime, and the living usually gets easy in the gas business: demand is down, and prices decline. Not this summer in Europe, though.

Since the beginning of June 2022, European gas prices spiked 70 percent, to $1,600 per thousand m3, the level almost seven times higher than a year ago. The key reason is the reduced flows of Russian gas to Europe: instead of “normal” 300 million m3/day they dropped to about 70 million m3/day. 

This has tightened Europe’s gas balance and led to gas withdrawals from storage (instead of the normal practice of pumping gas into storage during summer), putting the program of refilling the European gas storage facilities before the next heating season in jeopardy.

If Europe and Canada are unable to find a face-saving compromise to deal with the sanctions mess over gas turbines now, by November Germany’s choice might become even more embarrassing: to let Nord Stream 2 flow or risk a full-blown gas crisis and super-high prices in the midst of winter, writes Valdai Club expert Vitaly Yermakov.

#EconomicStatecraft #Europe #sanctions #gas

@valdai_club

📍🚧 As a transportation industry, gas pipelines play a critical role within major economic regions: the US, China, the European Union and Russia.

The rest of the world is mainly connected with liquefied natural gas (LNG). It’s true that LNG produces 25 percent more greenhouse gas emissions, but only the Greens care about that.  

The sustainable operation of large pipelines requires reliable pipes, compressors (turbines), a warranty service, freedom of use, insurance, and much more, as contracts require it, or rather, the need for supplies. Conflicts over freedom of pumping between distant partners, non-contractual gas off-take, or uncertainty regarding the reliability of equipment can make the use of pipelines risky for the industrial or domestic needs of importing countries.

Russian pipelines have worked for a very long time and reliably. The EU's decision to halt pipeline gas supplies in the foreseeable future suggests a transitional period, during which both sides create a clear and enforceable relationship structure. Something similar is likely to work in the future for grain, fertilizer and other critical Russian exports.

In this context, the disputes in the summer of 2022 regarding the repair and delivery of a Siemens turbine from Canada for Nord Stream 2 are not so much a technical issue but a legal and economic one this would be a pilot project for the coming years.

The EU's intention to reduce overall gas consumption by 15 percent by March 2023 is probably feasible, but only if there is moderately cold winter, writes Leonid Grigoryev, a tenured professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

#ModernDiplomacy #Europe #gas

@valdaiclub

🧣🏰 “War is coming back to Europe” is the new mantra. However, war didn’t come back just because of Ukraine.

There have been previous winters of war in Europe, linked to the bloody disaggregation of Yugoslavia. However, war in Ukraine, with all its geopolitical consequences, is a true game changer.

The sanctions taken against Russia by EU countries are generating a major “boomerang effect,” one which could lead to a global energy crisis. The shock will probably be felt by the EU economy this winter and afterwards.

It is therefore at this time that crucial political questions will arise regarding the expediency of the EU countries’ policy towards Russia, writes Valdai Club expert Jacques Sapir.

#Norms_and_Values #Europe #geopolitics #gas

@valdai_club

🌎⚔️🌏 The circle of participants in the Ukrainian crisis includes six groups of players pursuing different political goals. They are:

▪️The United States
▪️The countries of the so-called “New Europe” (Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia)
▪️The countries of Western Europe (Italy, France, Germany)
▪️The union state of Russia and Belarus
▪️A group of Western countries, which we call “gateways” (Turkey and Hungary)
▪️Ukraine itself

In view of the “vacation from strategic thinking” taken by the elites of these countries several decades ago, they met the first weeks of the crisis with a lot of confusion.

As a result, the countries of Western Europe actually delegated goal-setting in the outbreak of the crisis to the United States, the countries of New Europe and Britain.

The autumn of 2022 allows us to sum up the efficiency of the strategy of each group of actors in the unfolding crisis.

🔹 The countries of  “New Europe” have managed to get the United States actively immersed into European affairs. They have also achieved an internal political consolidation of their governments to embrace anti-Russian politics, which partially compensates for the dissatisfaction of the population over the fall in living standards. The failures of the “New Europe” include deep economic, social and migration crises — how they will compensate for it is not yet obvious.

🔹 The strategic successes of Western European countries are not obvious. Berlin, Paris, and Rome are facing unprecedented economic and energy crises, runaway inflation, and the risks of political destabilisation amid failed economic policies. These risks have been significantly exacerbated due to the fact that citizens actually pay for the prolongation of the crisis using their own money. There is a loss of initiative in “Old Europe” in the development of the crisis, which has been intercepted by the United States and “New Europe”.

🔹 The “gateway countries” — Hungary and Turkey — have acted more successfully. They have increased their autonomy from Washington and Brussels, and also offer themselves as platforms for diplomatic negotiations following the conflict, which enhances their international political weight. They didn’t pursue their course without risks: external pressure from the allies is increasing against them in order to “bring Ankara and Budapest back to the right line.”

Today we are witnessing a transition to the second phase of the Ukrainian crisis. The transition of the military-political confrontation between Russia and the West to 2023 seems highly probable, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

#ModernDiplomacy #UkraineCrisis #Europe

@valdai_club

🇨🇳🇪🇺 The “star” of the “16+1” format as a mechanism for China’s cooperation with the CEE countries rose rapidly: in 2012, 11 EU countries joined it (Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania) plus five Balkan states. Greece joined in 2018-2019. By this time, all countries in the group had also signed Memorandums of Understanding with China on cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

In the late 2010s relations between Brussels and Beijing, on the contrary, had started to worsen. The structure began to be rapidly politicised by the EU as a “Trojan horse” and an expression of China’s “divide and rule” policy.

As a result, Lithuania left the group in May 2021, followed by Latvia and Estonia in August 2022. Even though there may be no further decisive steps on the part of the remaining 14 players, cooperation is practically frozen.

Naturally, several questions arise: What was it all about? Was it that dangerous? What does this mean for contemporary relations between the EU and China? Writes Valdai Club expert Julia Melnikova.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/china-and-europe-what-was-it-the-rise-and-crumblin/

#EconomicStatecraft #China #Europe

@valdai_club