Is Germany's Sinking Economy Going To Destroy The EU?

 

Phil T Looker, Tuesday, Oct 11, 2022

Picture: via Zero Hedge

This blog has warned for years that with more than half its member states being economic basket cases, Europe’s dependence on the German industrial powerhouse could only end badly for the former Free trade club that became a wannabe geopolitical superstate. And sure enough it is happpening. The trigger has been an energy crisis brought about by Europe's having made itself dependent for energy needs on natural gas imported from Russia.

Escalating economic, financial and geopolitical crises brought about by arrogant beliefs that nothing could touch the 27 member trade Titan because it was too big, plus foolish and naive adoption of loonytoons energy policies in pursuit of pipe dreams like 'net zero,' exacerbated by the outbreask of war in eastern Europe have put increasing pressure on the whole EU project but on Germany in particular. And since the UK left the Union Germany has been propping up the EU economy.

The parallel crises of high inflation, energy shortages and food supply chain problems have also exposed the myth of “European unity” for the utter farce that it always was. It is becoming clear with the resurgence of nationalism in Italy, Spain, Sweden, France, Poland, Hungary and several other members that like most other things in Brussels' empire of lies, that the much vaunted unity was nothing but propaganda, the war and the perfect storm of crises have revealed the reality of the EU is opposite as allies turn against allies, each basket case state being in it only for what they can get.

Since somebody sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines through which cheap natural gas  flowed from Russia to Germany the German has lost nearly 60% of its industrial production. As Zoltan Pozsar suggested, $2 trillion of German value depended on $20 billion of Russian gas.

Nobody yet knows who was responsible for sabotaging the pipelines,but the most likely suspects are all Germany’s supposed friends and allies: the US, UK, Poland, Sweden and Denmark, with a consensus forming around its being a CIA engineered false flag event using 'Special Ops' military personnel from another country to ensure 'plausible deinability.'

However the eagerness of the USA and its NATO partners to blame Russia (which actually owns the pipelines and earned a big slice of its foreign revenue from the gas that flowed through them,) and some eccentric accusation that Germany was responsible, (as if the Germans, knowing how dependent on Russian gas they were, would shoot themselves in the foot by cutting of their gas supply,suggests that senior figures in NATO are trying to hide something.

 Another possible explanation is that the target of the sabotage was not Russia although any harm done to Putin's regime was a bonus for the U. S. deep state as the Biden administration continues trying to provoke Russia into attacking U. S. interests to give the Americans an excuse to directly intervene in Ukraine, but that it was a deliberate and premeditated attack on Germany.

For years, the US has been pressuring Germany to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and to end its dependency on Russian gas . To persuade German leaders, their U.S. counterparts promised to replace Russian gas by buying U. S. gas at sky high prices. 

As we now know, Germany’s “friends and allies” in Washington  took advantage of German's folly in closing down its coal and nuclear power stations to appease the powerful Green lobby in German politics, by delivering natural gas at extortionate prices. According to an energy investment banker Laurent Segalen US gas producers could load a large LNG tanker in the US at a cost of about $60 million per shipment. The cargo could then be sold for up to $275 million in Europe, thanks to the massive price disparity between the US and European markets: in the US, Natural Gas trades at less than $7/mBtu (million British thermal units) while Dutch TTF futures recently traded at over $60/mBtu. So there we have it, to use the vernacular ov television detectives the USA had the means, the opportunity (privided by escalation of the war,) and the motive (to prop up its ailing economy,) for carrying out the sabotage.

Last month one of the key figures in creating Germany's energy and economic catastrophe, the Economy minister in the Social Democrat led ruling coalition, Robert Habeck publicly complained about the situation in an interview to German media. Only yesterday, French economy minister Bruno Le Maire chimed in: “We cannot accept that our American partner sells its LNG four times the price at which it sells it to its own industries.” But these lamentations come far too late to mitigate the extreme damage to European economies. The EU member states chose, almost unanimously, to back Ukraine in the thus pissing off Russian President Vladimir Putin and his oligarchic government thus providing the American deep state with the means to delflect media attention from the obvious conclusion.

Unfortunately whatever the truth might be, Germany is the loser.

Thus, with Poland, in a bid to solve its own economic woes, demanding 1.3 trillion Euros in reparations for WW2, Germany has suddenly found itself shafted in every way imaginable by “friends” and “allies.” Even though the reactions from Germany (apart from that Habeck interview) have been remarkably quiet, it is easy to imagine the panic gripping  Chancellor Scholz‘s government  as German industrialists and labor union leaders demand immediate action though none knows what to do. AHans Peter Wollseifer of the Central Association of German Crafts said to the Rheinische post, “Every day, we receive emergency calls from companies that are about to stop production because they can no longer pay the enormously increased energy bills.”  

The Federation of German Industries (BDI) also warned of a wave of bankruptcies due to energy cost inflation which is now a major challenge for 58% of companies while 34% believe that the crisis jeopardizes their very survival. The German nation is being pushed towards destruction and Putin is winning the economic war hands down. Naturally none of this is being mentioned by mainstream media, according to western corporate media narratives Germany has found itself in the situation where it may have only one partner to rely upon. If you guessed Russia, you guessed correctly. Of course, as a member of the EU and NATO, Germany cannot chart its foreign policy independently, but the pressure to somehow break out of its constraints and reclaim its sovereignty must be growing and it can only be a matter of time until Germany breaks ranks, withdraws its support for the proxy war with Russia the American deep state has yearned for since George W Bush was president. and seeks a treaty with Russia.