Global S&T Development Trend Analysis Platform of Resources and Environment
A New Ostpolitik | |
Ed Brophy | |
2022-04-07 | |
出版年 | 2022 |
国家 | 欧洲 |
领域 | 气候变化 |
英文摘要 | Das Ende Der Wende?After the dizzying speed and scale of the EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the familiar anticlimax has set in. Deep-seated national interests are reasserting themselves and longstanding fault lines are reappearing in fiscal policy, energy security and defence. Has Wendepolitik spluttered to a premature halt? Or is this merely a pause for breath? While the EU has presented plans to reduce demand for Russian gas by two thirds before the end of the year and become fully independent of Russian fossil fuels “well before” 2030, there is no political appetite for an immediate boycott. According to Bruegel, the current export value of Russian piped gas to the EU is just short of €700 million dollars a day. Research from the NGO Transport & Environment puts the daily value of Russian oil exports to the union at $285 million. ![]()
This is most visible in the rebound in the value of the rouble: while Russia’s currency initially lost half its value against the dollar, it has now recovered to a rate about 30 per cent below its prewar level. As the EU’s biggest importer of Russian fossil fuels, Germany is at the sharp end of these contradictions. In pushing back against calls from Eastern member states like Poland and Czechia for an immediate ban, the government has argued that this would plunge Germany and all of Europe into a recession, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz warning that “hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk, entire industries would be on the brink.” These claims have been presented with little empirical evidence. Indeed, the most sophisticated external analysis suggests that they are overstated:
At the weekend, Scholz doubled down on his refusal to contemplate an energy boycott, arguing that Putin could not use the hard currency because of existing sanctions, and excoriating economists who advocate this. Not only are they “wrong,” he told German television, but “honestly irresponsible to calculate around with some mathematical models that don’t really work.” ![]() The Government’s reluctance to cut off this key source of funding for Putin’s war machine is better explained as a response to shifting public opinion. While support for Ukraine remains strong, the willingness to tolerate material sacrifices in pursuit of this is weakening:
The contradictions of German policy were exploded by President Zelensky’s address to the Bundestag on March 17th, where he excoriated the country’s prioritisation of its own narrow economic interests over its obligation to try to end the war by turning off the energy spigot. The effect was to send Ostpolitik’s tainted successor “change through trade” to the dustbin of history:
Wendepolitik has unfolded at bewildering speed. For now, as it relates to the choices on energy, defence or fiscal policy that this historical turning point demands, it is merely an aspiration for which there is no clear public or political consensus within Germany. But Germany alone will not decide the course of European politics and statecraft: from the ashes of the old, discredited Ostpolitik, and with Zelensky leading the charge, a new Ostpolitik is coming into view. This article was originally published by Ed Brophy on the Fault Lines. Read the original here. |
URL | 查看原文 |
来源平台 | E3G |
文献类型 | 科技报告 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/349890 |
专题 | 气候变化 |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Ed Brophy. A New Ostpolitik,2022. |
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