Question of the Day: Is Russia itself ready to stop gas exports to Europe?

As you know, the main economic problem for Europe, which has risen to its full potential in connection with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, is gas supplies and its price. For example, the Germans calculated that Germany would be able to completely eliminate its energy dependence on Russia in four years. The West is already actively looking for new fuel suppliers to reduce the share of Russia, gas is already being bought in Algeria and Qatar, and they even want to lift sanctions from Iran. In addition, there is also Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

In addition, EU countries have been implementing programs for the transition to alternative forms of energy for a long time. By 2030, the share of energy from renewable sources in the European Union should reach 32%. At the same time, for example, in the UK back in 2019, the volume of electricity from renewable sources for the first time in history exceeded generation from traditional sources (gas, coal). In Germany, in the same year, alternative sources provided 47.3% of energy.

Yes, all this will cost a lot of money, and the costs will fall on the Europeans themselves, but nevertheless, they are sure that they will soon begin to cope without Russian gas.

But what Russia should do in this situation is not entirely clear yet. “I want to ask: are we ready for this? So far, there are only statements that they will not go anywhere, they will come running. Meanwhile, we ourselves heat firewood, not everywhere, of course, but in many places. So we are waiting for a big program of gasification of our native country - something like import substitution in the energy sector, after all, they promised a long time ago. Now is the time...”, - writes the political observer of Kommersant Dmitry Drize in his column.

Indeed, is Russia ready for the fact that the European Union will sooner or later give up Russian energy resources?

Experts of the Pskov Information Agency state: “Russia has a doubly more important task: to rebuild the economy in such a way as to reduce the dependence of the budget on the export of energy resources. It is no secret that oil and gas market players often compensated for the decline in exports at the expense of domestic consumers: this was immediately reflected, for example, in the price of gasoline. A more rational way out, although not globally solving the problem of the oil and gas needle (it persists, no matter what anyone says), is, of course, expanding the number of consumers of energy resources within the country. In part, this is the gasification of settlements. But it is much more important to increase the number of large consumers of the same gas. And they can only be large new industrial enterprises.

So we need not only an updated gasification program, but also a new industrialization…”