German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a page out of President Biden’s playbook in his New Year’s Eve address, blaming Putin, rather than his own government’s short-sighted policies, for unleashing a global security crisis and putting the German economy into a tailspin.
“With COVID-19 barely receding, Russia began a merciless conflict in the center of Europe. Soon after that, the Russian president turned off the natural gas tap, and in the fall there was a brutal terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel,” Scholz said.
“Our world has become a more unsettled and harsher place. It’s changing at an almost breathtaking speed,” the chancellor added. “The result is that we too are having to change. This is a worrying thing for many of us. For some, it is also causing discontent. I do take that to heart. But I also know this: We in Germany will get through it,” Scholz said.
Assuring that his government has done a good job in tackling inflation, raising wages, fighting unemployment and replenishing the country’s energy supplies since the cutoff of Russian gas, Scholz expressed confidence that Berlin has managed to hold back an “economic downturn” and to save energy collectively as a nation.
Stressing that the key to German power lies in the “strength” of the European Union and its 400 million inhabitents, Scholz urged that “it is important for Europe to emerge unified and strengthened from the European elections in the coming year. After all, Russia’s war in the east of our continent is not over. Nor is the armed conflict in the Middle East. The year ahead will also bring presidential elections in the United States, which may have far-reaching consequences – including for us here in Europe.”
Blame Game
The chancellor’s comments blaming Russia for sky-high energy costs in Europe are nothing new, with Scholz, members of his cabinet and Germany’s allies both in Europe and across the Atlantic regularly repeating the mantra that it was Russia which “turned off the taps” of cheap and dependable gas supplies to the continent. Scholz and his colleagues traditionally leave out the fact that it was the United States which (allegedly) destroyed the Nord Stream Baltic Sea gas pipelines, and that Poland and Ukraine, not Russia, cut off gas flows to Europe via their overland pipelines, leaving TurkStream the only fully operational Russian infrastructure pumping gas to Europe.
Spiraling energy costs in the EU have meant that the bloc has had to overpay more than $204 billion on energy over the past 20 months alone, with manufacturers flee the region for climes where energy costs are lower and tax breaks more plentiful (first and foremost the United States). Meanwhile, ordinary Germans have been left facing higher fuel and utility costs and jacked up prices at supermarkets and big box stores.
Curiously, Scholz didn’t mention the impact of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act on the German economy, even has hundreds of enterprises big and small packed up their bags and left for North America amid the energy crunch to take advantage of the US federal government’s generous subsidies for the production of so-called ‘green’ technologies.
As for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president warned the Europeans over a year-and-a-half ago that if they made the short-sighted decision to stop the purchase of Russian energy, the EU’s economic competiveness would be shattered.
Germany and other Eurozone economies have slipped in and out of recession for over a year now, sparking widespread discontentment among Germans with their government. Polling conducted last month found that some three quarters of respondents are dissatisfied with Chancellor Scholz’s ‘traffic light coalition’, with Scholz’s Social Democratic Party polling at just 17 percent support, the Greens at 13 percent, and the Free Democrats at 5 percent, for a total of 35 percent. The mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union bloc and the populist right Alternative for Germany hit 24 and 17 percent support, respectively, while Linke and former Linke lawmaker Sahra Wagenknecht’s new populist left BSW party 2 and 14 percent support, respectively.
Germans will go to the polls to elect representatives of the European Parliament in June 2024, with the next federal elections to the Bundestag to be held in October 2025.