Tag: EU

Please Don’t Hit Us

The Eu declares it is not at war with Russia:

The European Union is not at war with Russia, but it will continue to support Ukraine in its fight against Moscow, EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano said on Wednesday. The statement came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of troops.

Speaking at a press conference, Stano was asked whether the EU is in a state of war with Russia, given that earlier Vladimir Putin had claimed that Russia is facing “the entire Western military machine” in Ukraine. The foreign policy spokesman replied in the negative.

“Of course we are not in war with Russia. We are supporting Ukraine’s legitimate, justified fight to defend its people and its territory,” he said, adding that Kiev is protecting not only itself, but also European democratic values.

And then promptly turned around and announced new sanctions – that will totally work this time – in response to Russia announcing it is willing to respect democratic self-determination in four former Ukrainian provinces.

The EU has agreed to slap new sanctions on Russia “as soon as possible” over plans to hold referendums in the Donbass republics and Russian-controlled regions in Ukraine on whether to unite with Russia, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said on Wednesday.

Apparently “European democractic values” mean “anti-democratic values”. But this preemptive refusal to accept the will of the Novorussian people isn’t a surprise, given the way the EU also refused to recognize the will of the Catalonian people.

Unfortunately for the EU, unlike tango, it only takes one to war.

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The End of Beer

It’s hard to imagine that the Germans, Belgians, and English are going to be willing to give up beer for Ukraine.

UK brewers are facing tenfold price increases for the CO2 they use to carbonate and package beers, the Financial Times reported on Friday, also citing supply disruptions that could threaten brewing ahead of the Christmas season.

According to the report, the market disruption follows a warning from US fertilizer group CF Industries last month that it would shut down a major UK ammonia plant that makes CO2 as a byproduct. The company said its decision was due to soaring natural gas prices, which have made production unviable.

The report also pointed out that gas suppliers have been struggling to source CO2 from international markets because of ammonia plant closures in Europe. The energy price spikes and shortages have come as brewers prepare to increase production for Christmas. According to William Lees-Jones, managing director at JW Lees brewery in Middleton, Greater Manchester, the CO2 that had cost £250 a ton ($284) in June was priced last week at £2,800 a ton ($3,187).

Meanwhile, in Italy, the best case scenario involves more than half-a-million people losing their jobs.

Italy is at risk of losing up to 582,000 jobs due to the energy crisis and the resulting economic downturn, national media reported on Sunday, citing a study by the Confindustria Association of Industrialists. According to the findings, if the gas price stays at its current level (the August average was €235 per megawatt-hour), Italy’s economy will shrink 2.2% next year and the country will lose up to 383,000 jobs in 2022-2023. However, if the price hits €298 per megawatt-hour, which is the predicted level based on current gas futures, Italy may suffer a 3.2% decline in GDP and lose hundreds of thousands of jobs.

If Europe isn’t allowed to surrender by the US neocons calling the shots, the price is going to go higher than the predicted €298 per megawatt-hour, which means the economic damage will be even more catastrophic.

UPDATE: Ach du Lieber! It’s getting worse than I thought, faster than I thought.

A German bakery was slapped with a €330,000 gas bill after a new energy company suddenly terminated their contract which guaranteed pricing until the end of 2023, Junge Freiheit reported, citing Bild.

“Are they crazy?” said owner Eckehard Vatter, who says he has 14 days to pay the bill. “A year ago, we paid €5,856 per month in gas costs for our large furnaces and heating,” he added. Vatter said his new energy supplier hasn’t given him a reason for the 1,200% price increase.

This crisis is also demonstrating the inherent falsity of what passes for “contract law”. The contracts are often loaded with one-sided fine print that renders them essentially irrelevant, thereby demonstrating that “consent” and “contract” are fundamentally immoral weapons in the con man’s arsenal.

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I Suspect They’re Dragging Their Feet

And it’s going to take a lot longer than 30 months once the power goes out:

Germany has agreed to provide 18 self-propelled RCH-155 howitzers to Ukraine, on top of the heavy weaponry that Berlin has already pledged to hand over, Die Welt has claimed. However, the first shipment is at least 30 months away, the outlet reported Saturday, citing the manufacturer.

In 30 months, it’s entirely possible that neither Ukraine nor the EU will exist. And I’m not the only one who is skeptical that the EU can survive being used by the US neocons to fight an economic proxy war for them.

Orban again lashed out at EU sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, saying the bloc had shot itself in the foot with those curbs. The energy crisis, which occurred as a result of those restrictions, could force 40% of European industry to shut down this winter, he reportedly added.

In his speech, the Hungarian leader also allegedly revealed that European leaders are expected to decide on prolonging the sanctions for another six months later in autumn, insisting that an attempt should be made to prevent that extension.

The way things are going now, the eurozone and the EU itself could cease to exist by 2030, Orban was quoted as saying.

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Suicide is not Murder

If the Europeans want to starve and freeze themselves, how is that Russia’s problem? How is that Russia’s fault?

President Vladimir Putin on Friday denied Russia had anything to do with Europe’s energy crisis, saying that if the European Union wanted more gas it should lift sanctions preventing the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Speaking to reporters after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan, Putin blamed what he called “the green agenda” for the energy crisis, and insisted that Russia would fulfil its energy obligations.

“The bottom line is, if you have an urge, if it’s so hard for you, just lift the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, which is 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year, just push the button and everything will get going,” Putin said.

Nord Stream 2, which lays on the bed of the Baltic Sea almost in parallel to Nord Stream 1, was built a year ago, but Germany decided not to proceed with it just days before Russia sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

European gas prices more than doubled from the start of the year amid a decline in Russian supplies. This year’s price surge has squeezed struggling already consumers and forced some industries to halt production.

If I refuse to drive to the supermarket, I cannot reasonably complain that the supermarket is trying to starve me. No, even that analogy is too generous.

If I refuse to call Dominos and order a pizza, and if I tell them that even if I did order a pizza I will not pay for it with actual cash, but insist on paying with Monopoly money, then I cannot reasonably complain that Dominos is trying to starve me.

It is simply false to blame the NATO-Russian war on Russia. NATO started it and Russia is winning it. The longer the Europeans accept direction from Washington, the worse they are going to suffer. So stop posturing, push the button, and let everything get going.

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Germany Doubles Down

I don’t think seizing Russian energy assets is going to convince Russia to turn on the gas and prevent Germans from freezing this winter.

Berlin is taking control of German subsidiaries of Russian oil major Rosneft, Rosneft Deutschland (RDG) and RN Refining & Marketing, putting them under trust management for six months, the German Ministry of Economics announced on Friday.

According to the ministry, control will be given to the grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency of Germany). The ministry explained that the step was taken to ensure the operation of three Rosneft oil refineries in Schwedt, Karlsruhe and Vohburg, which was jeopardized after critical service providers, insurers and banks allegedly refused to work with the Russian company.

“The legal basis for the order was Article 17 of the Energy Security Act. According to it, a company that operates critical infrastructure in the energy sector can be placed under management if there is a specific risk that without management the company will not be able to perform its tasks that ensure the functioning of society in the energy sector, as well as if there is a risk of disruption of security of supply,” the ministry said in a statement.

Rosneft enterprises account for about 20% of oil refinery capacities in Germany, making it one of the largest in the country.

At this point, I’d be surprised if the Russians don’t start hitting targets outside of Ukrainian territory before the end of the year. The neocons wanted this war and I expect they’re going to get it good and hard. It’s not as if Putin and his generals don’t know who has been pushing for this since before 2008.

Which is the reason I just doubled our wood supply. Just, you know, in case. But why would Germany ever do something this obviously stupid? Oh, that’s why.

Last Sunday, the US ambassador to Berlin, Amy Gutmann, told the German broadcaster ZDF that she expects Germany to “take on a greater leadership role.” She acknowledged Berlin’s military assistance to Kiev, but said her expectations are “even higher.”

“So far, Germany has done what we asked for,” a US official told Die Welt on Thursday, adding that Berlin could be moving “faster.” The paper reported that Washington has “doubts” about Germany’s fundamental loyalty to Kiev, questioning whether it wants Ukraine to “win” or just “not to lose.”

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The EU Lost

The complete uselessness – actually, worse than uselessness – of the European Union can be seen in the way that it managed to lose a war in which it wasn’t even involved.

The EU has suffered severe political and economic damage from its handling of the situation in Ukraine, and can already be declared the loser in the conflict, the speaker of Hungary’s National Assembly claimed on Sunday.

Laszlo Kover, who is a member of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, accused Brussels of failing to prevent the conflict through political means, with the result that it’s “unable to restore peace diplomatically.”

“Under external pressure, the EU is acting against its most basic economic interests and should already be considered a loser, regardless of which of the parties directly involved in fighting will declare itself the winner,” he said. Powers outside Europe are trying to condemn the bloc’s members to “military vulnerability, political subjugation, economic and energy incapacity, financial indebtedness and social disintegration,” with Brussels helping them to achieve this goal, the parliament speaker claimed.

The EU is grappling with soaring natural gas prices, the prospect of energy shortages in winter and spiking inflation in the wake of sanctions it imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.

The EU will surrender to Russia this winter, the USA permitting. And if the USA does not permit, several more member-states will follow Britain out the exit.

UPDATE: There is now a reasonable chance that Russia will declare war on Germany. And justifiably so. Fortunately, the Germans are already in such an energy-deprived state that a few targeted missile strikes against key power plants of the sort that were launched against Ukraine yesterday would probably suffice to bring Berlin to its knees.

Germany has crossed a red line with Russia by sending arms to Ukraine, Moscow’s ambassador in Berlin said on Monday. The decision undermined decades of reconciliation since the end of World War II and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the diplomat added.

“The very fact that the Ukrainian regime is being supplied with German-made lethal weapons, which are used not only against Russian military service members, but also the civilian population of Donbass, crosses the red line,” Ambassador Sergey Nechaev said in an interview with Izvestia newspaper.

He added that Berlin should have known better, “considering the moral and historic responsibility that Germany has before our people for the Nazi crimes.”

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A Cold, Dark Winter

The numbers are not looking good for Europe.

We got a very shocking sense of the staggering numbers involved in the existential, crippling European crisis earlier today when Norwegian energy giant Equinor echoed what Zoltan Pozsar said in March, warning that “European energy trading risks grinding to a halt unless governments extend liquidity to cover margin calls of at least $1.5 trillion.” As Bloomberg put it, in its best non-Zoltan imitation, “aside from inflating bills and fanning inflation, the biggest energy crisis in decades is sucking up capital to guarantee trades amid wild price swings. That’s putting pressure on European Union officials to intervene to prevent energy markets from stalling.”

“Liquidity support is going to be needed,” Helge Haugane, Equinor’s senior vice president for gas and power, said in an interview. The issue is focused on derivatives trading, while the physical market is functioning, he said, adding that the company’s estimate for $1.5 trillion to prop up so-called paper trading is “conservative.””

In other words, massive amounts of newly-printed funding (because with yields blowing up, Europe’s fiscal stimulus will be over before it started unless central banks step in and backstop the latest energy hyperinflation bailout plans) will be required to avert an energy disaster. Alas, the final number will be even more massive, because overnight Goldman’s research team published a must read note (available to pro subs), in which the bank looked at the scale of the energy bill challenge, potential European government responses and industry implications, and quantified the total damage. The numbers are staggering:

According to Goldman, Italian household energy bills could rise from ~€150 to ~€600 in 2023. Some more details:

“For most families and industrial customers, energy bills are renegotiated every twelve months; on our estimates, energy bills for most consumers will peak this winter. We estimate a c.€500/month cost for power and gas currently, implying a c.200% increase vs. 2021 when average bills were c.€160/month. Energy bills could approach €600/month in a zero flows (from Russia) scenario we believe. “

The trigger for this exponential surge in costs: since January 2020, 1-year forward gas and power prices – usually the reference when signing new energy supply contracts for families or industrial customers – have each increased by more than 13x. The following exhibit shows this evolution, rebased to 100.

For Europe as a whole, this would be equivalent to a near €2 TRILLION increase in gas and power spending (equivalent to c.15% of GDP)… the math is simple: Europe can’t print more nat gas, oil, coal, etc, so one way or another, it will have to offset the surge in costs, first in commodities and then in all downstream chains, which in the very near future will mean governments will soon be subsidizing Europe’s cost of living as the alternative is a violent revolution.

This is not an exaggeration. I’ve heard of forward contracts with increases as much as 16x from very reliable sources, and that’s in Switzerland, which is in better shape, electricity-wise, than the UK, Germany, or France.

But the choice between inflationary subsidies and violent revolution is a false binary. There is a third and much better option.

It’s time for nationalist leaders to come forward, replace the failed globalists in the various European governments, end their retarded and self-destructive alliances with Ukraine, and make a peace with Russia that will inspire it to turn on both Nordstream 1 and Nordstream 2. The Europeans are going to have to surrender to Russia sooner or later, so they might as well do it sooner and minimize the economic consequences to their people and to their economies.

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Play Stupid Energy Games

Win the prize of a cold, dark winter and an angry citizenry:

Russia is deliberately sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline to spite the EU, European officials have claimed, questioning Moscow’s explanation for an indefinite delay in restoring service.

State-owned energy giant Gazprom informed its European customers on Saturday that it could not safely resume operations until it had fixed “oil leaks” discovered in a major turbine during a maintenance operation.

Nord Stream was set to come back online just after midnight Saturday morning after three days of maintenance. The leaks, reportedly affecting “cables connected to speed meters of a rotor,” were discovered during a technical inspection with the turbine’s German manufacturer Siemens. Moscow had earlier warned that the pipeline’s operation was threatened by sanctions, which had created a shortage of spare parts.

However, Siemens argued the company had alternate turbines at the compressor station where the leak had been discovered and could use one of those in case of a real emergency. “Such leaks do not normally affect the operation of a turbine and can be sealed on site,” they claimed.

European Commission spokesman Charles Michel condemned what he called Russia’s “use of gas as a weapon,” declaring it would not “change the resolve of the EU” as the bloc works toward “energy independence.”

Commission press service chief Eric Mamer slammed the “fallacious pretenses” he claimed Gazprom had used to shut down the pipeline, holding it up as proof of both their “cynicism” and their “unreliability as a supplier” and suggesting Moscow “prefer[red] to flare gas instead of honoring contracts.”

German parliamentary foreign affairs committee chair Michael Roth denounced the shutdown as “part of Russia’s psychological war against us” and accused President Vladimir Putin of “violat[ing] contracts without scruples….even at the expense of his own economic interests.”

Let’s get this straight. Europe has a perfectly operational natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, that it refuses to use. Russia has, quite reasonably, decided that it’s not interested in continuing to provide natural gas to the same countries that are a) sanctioning its people and b) arming and funding the Ukrainian war against Russia on the terms of those enemies.

Can you even imagine how many contracts have been violated by the European sanctions against Russia? This anti-Russian rhetoric is as ineffective as it is retarded. Frankly, I’m astonished that the Russians didn’t shut down the pipeline months ago.

Then again, it is rather amusing to see the Russians slowly dialing up the pain while simultaneously pretending that there is nothing they can do about it. As an award-winning cruelty artist, I have to say that I tend to approve of the sadistic diplomacy they have applied to this situation.

Germany’s initial Energy Saving Ordinance, in effect for the next six months:

  • Retail stores may no longer keep their doors open throughout the day to reduce electricity consumption for air conditioning when it is hot outside — and for heating on cold winter days.
  • Public buildings and monuments have to go dark at 10 p.m.
  • Illuminated advertising must be switched off after 10p.m., with only a few exceptions. If advertisements serve traffic safety, they remain switched on, for example, at railroad underpasses. Street lamps also remain on, and store windows may continue to be illuminated.
  • Monuments and other buildings may no longer be illuminated at night. At least not for purely aesthetic reasons. However, emergency lighting will not be switched off, and illumination is permitted for cultural events and public festivals.
  • In public buildings, halls and corridors will generally no longer be heated, and the temperature in offices will be limited to a maximum of 19 degrees. In places where heavy physical work is performed, temperatures will be even lower in the future. However, the restrictions do not apply to social facilities such as hospitals, daycare centers, and schools, where higher air temperatures are essential for the “health of the people who spend time there,” according to the Economy Ministry.
  • Cutting back on warm water. Likewise, in public buildings, instantaneous water heaters or hot water tanks should be switched off if they are mainly used for washing hands. Exceptions are made for medical facilities, schools, and daycare centers. Some cities go even further. There, the showers in swimming pools and sports halls will remain unheated.
  • Private pools may no longer be heated with gas and electricity, except for rehab centers, recreational facilities, and hotels. The new regulations will initially apply until the end of February.

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Destroying Democracy to Save It

It didn’t take the Green Party in Germany long to abandon democracy and go full totalitarian:

Even if Germans take to the streets over energy prices, Berlin must support Ukraine by maintaining sanctions on Russia, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told a conference in Prague on Wednesday.

While much of the German cabinet was at a working retreat in Castle Meseberg outside Berlin, Baerbock was in Prague for a conference dubbed ‘Democracy’s Clear and Present Danger: How Do We Respond?’ organized by the NGO Forum 2000.

“If I give the promise to people in Ukraine – ‘We stand with you, as long as you need us’ – then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, but I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine,” Baerbock said at one point.

“I have to be clear that this holds on as long as Ukraine needs me,” she said, referring to the EU embargo against Russia.

“We are facing now wintertime, when we will be challenged as democratic politicians. People will go in the street and say ‘We cannot pay our energy prices’. And I will say ‘Yes I know, so we help you with social measures.’ But I don’t want to say ‘Ok then we stop the sanctions against Russia.’ We will stand with Ukraine, and this means the sanctions will stay also in wintertime, even if it gets really tough for politicians.”

These globalists are straight-up satanists, which you can recognize by their inevitable inversions. This woman is actually coming out and saying that no matter what the German voters think, the only way to protect democracy is to ignore them.

They had to destroy democracy to save it.

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Post-EU Europe

It’s on the way. Beginning with Brexit, the European Union is proceeding along the path of previous European political and monetary unions toward extinction.

Germany’s Chancellor Scholz of the Social Democratic Party proposes an end to EU vetoes, starting in areas of foreign policy and taxation.

This is an open acknowledgement that the globalist vision of the European Union has comprehensively failed. As I mentioned on last night’s Darkstream, the European leaders are going to have to choose between standing by their professed principles and taking off the veil and revealing themselves to be naked authoritarians.

Naturally, I anticipate they will choose the latter, but the problem is that their authority is mostly perceived and it rests entirely upon the very principles that they will be abandoning. Their problem is further complicated by the fact that a) they don’t possess very much in the way of force and b) they are already at war with a superior enemy who could easily arm and supply the nationalist forces that are rising against them.

There is little need for politicians in a post-political world. And an end to the EU vetoes is an absolute guarantee of the end of the European Union in its current form.

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