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After 3 years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Europe announces plan to ban all Russian gas imports
(kyivindependent.com)
About damn time.
this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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When Trump makes you look like an idiot you know you've screwed up.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZH6zhh_1rCw
Then Germany shutting their nuclear power down in order to focus on wind and solar, which has to be one of the dumbest mistakes made in the last century, which dramatically hurt places like Africa from which they stole their supply of coal. Meanwhile spain is having black outs due to their renewable usage, due to not having the massive energy storage required for 100% uptime.
Lukoil is still thriving in the USA. About .10 - .15 cheaper. Always a line.
Lukoil in the USA is American owned (as a franchise) and operated and does not use Russian oil. We don't import any Russian oil to the US. Some money does go overseas but Lukoil is (nominally) a private company so seems to have avoided sanctions. Overall I'd say there are bigger fish to fry.
I wish lemmy was less like reddit, and that commenters actually skimmed the articles or knew anything about the situation beyond the headlines.
But hell, here goes, I'll try to use small words and explain things for you guys:
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If they instantly turned it off without a replacement, a lot of people would have died. And even if a country government tried, their own citizens would riot over the idea that old people would die.
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Coal is already banned.
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Oil imports have dropped from 27% to 3%
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In 2021 the gas accounted for 45% of imports in the EU, now it's 19% and the plan is to have it at zero by 2027.
There’s been a big influx of users from Reddit and with it came the low effort one liner zingers and people allergic to reading the linked articles.
I do really like how a lot of people here post articles give a summary below their link. While it’s definitely not required, it is super helpful and makes it harder for people to just form opinions and start blabbing in the comments based on a headline.
Things get a little shittier for awhile every time there's a mass migration, but it seems like most communities do a decent job holding newbies to a higher standard than reddit (read: any standard). Eventually Lemmy gets better again.
I suspect it may inevitably end up like Reddit. The problem IMO is comment visibility. Even if you're not trying to farm karma, people like their comments to be visible. Everyone wants to have their voice heard. And it seems that short "zinger" comments and jokes are the most effective way to make that happen. The current community does support high effort quality comments well, but I think as we get diluted with more users it's a slippery slide. I hope I'm wrong.
I think the rest of us need to apply pressure against that trend. I try to call out assholes in a civil fashion, at least so it makes it harder to be one, and I don't upvote comments that don't add to the conversation. I can't downvote them since I'm on blahaj, so downvote them extra hard for me!
About fucking time
This is so funny cuz it actually has the potential to bankrupt Russia, all because they chose to invade a nation that represents at best marginal economic power.
Russia chose to invade a nation that had recently discovered large reserves of natural gas - more than enough to supply Europe's needs while they transitioned to alternatives - and that sat astride the pipeline that Russia uses to provide their gas to Europe. Even though Russia has not proved capable of conquering all of Ukraine, their occupation of the Donbas region has prevented Ukraine from becoming a viable natural gas competitor in the European market and kept their primary source of revenue alive, at least in the short term.
If we actually manage to pull it off it's a pretty decent disincentive. Invade neighbor for resources? No one will buy those resources from you.
Obviously not sufficient on its own, but seems like a good place to start.
This better stay in place once the war is over, no matter how it ends
The import of coal from Russia has already stopped, they are in the process of ending oil imports, but the situation is different when it comes to gas.
Although the share of Russian gas in the EU dropped from 45 percent in 2021 to 13 percent now, Russia still earns 23 billion euros per year from it. Despite the restrictions, Russian energy exports remain an important source of income for the Kremlin.
The EU member states and the European Parliament still need to approve the plans. The expectation is that the plan will lead to fierce debate, especially from Hungary and Slovakia. These countries are the most pro-Russian and still rely heavily on Russian energy.
But Commission President Von der Leyen says that the energy coming to Europe must not contribute to the war against Ukraine. "We owe that to our citizens, our businesses, and our brave Ukrainian friends." 👏🏽💪🇪🇺🇺🇦
Von der Leyen’s Plan to End Russian Gas Imports by 2027 (REPowerEU) (Sources: Reuters, AP News, Financial Times, Euronews, Kyiv Independent) Key Measures:
- Ban on new gas contracts after 2025
- End existing contracts by 2027
- Mandatory transparency for gas deals
- Switch to LNG from other suppliers & renewables
- Help for Hungary & Slovakia to transition
To overcome opposition from Hungary and Slovakia, the EU will use qualified majority voting, so no single country can veto the plan. Each country must submit its own phase-out plan, tailored to its situation. The EU is offering financial tools under the REPowerEU plan to help countries support their companies exiting Russian deals and phase out Russian energy. These include grants and loans from the recovery fund, support from the European Investment Bank, and targeted funds for energy infrastructure and renewables, like Hungary receiving €700 million in grants and applying for €3.9 billion in loans to upgrade its energy system.
Canada here: you can have ours!
It's a nice idea but the difficulty is in getting it there.
LNG tankers!
Natural gas blimps! It's already lighter than air after all...
Sometimes, my genius is almost terrifying
Prepare for the plan!
Yes, ma'am, preparing for the plan!
Yes, and it can still be vetoed by our union friends from Slovakia or Hungary. Hell, even my own government in the Netherlands may try to sabotage this, since we've got the most worthless bunch of idiots ever in charge.
"New EU legislative proposals need approval from the European Parliament and a reinforced majority of EU countries."
That is different than sanctions which need to be unanimous (bit of an odd discrepancy)
USA here. I'll trade you any time you want.
I'm sure you will, and I wish you all the best. At least our bunch is more of "talk much do little" variety. It helps that it's a four party coalition, who can't even agree on the day of the week.
Hey, if it helps seal a trade, my guy is the same color of your national team jerseys.
I heard it's Logsday
Always is
Wow a plan!
After 3 full years... only now doing it...
Nonono, they plan to do it. Might take anorher 3 years for execution.
About damned time. They need to do that here (Japan) as well.
Good for the EU. People often need a common threat to come together
now its multiple threats , russia and the USA.
At the moment, that is only one threat.
It is part of a strategy to unload their dollar holdings. Basically buy natural gas from the US.
The value of a dollar is about to be beaten into the ground
It is part of a strategy to unload their dollar holdings.
Ya gotta have the currency in order to spend it. If a Nation runs out of USD while they still need NG (or anything else traded in USD) then they're going to have a bad time.
The value of a dollar is about to be beaten into the ground.
Possibly but the U.S. Federal Reserve has the ability to blackhole a LOT of dollars and if the inflows exceed their ability then the price of NG will climb until it balances.
If you doubt me then line up this chart of US NG Exports with this chart of USD DXY. The effect predicted by the strategy isn't visible.
Frankly I'm not sure there's enough NG demand in the world to tank the USD via purchases.
The goal is not to tank the dollar but unload it in a way that is most politically and economically beneficial to the EU.
That's a pretty fancy way of saying "We are going to use our money to buy things we need." I mean that's sorta to be expected.
It's also not a comment on "value of the dollar is about to beaten into the ground". There doesn't seem to be a basis to support the theory that purchasing too much NG will cause the US Dollar to decline in value.
The USD will likely decrease in value but it will happen because of Republican stupidity, not due to mass purchases of goods from US companies.
Completely agree that the purchasing alone would not drive the value of the dollar down but the change in policy reflects a global loss of trust in the dollar.
Being a reserve currency, means most of its value is in the global trust in it being a “stable” store of value.
Trust is quick to destroy and very slow to build. No country unloading their position wants the value to crash but they all are actively starting to unwind their dollar positions.
In another couple of years. If Hungary and Slovakia are willing to play along (they aren't).
"New EU legislative proposals need approval from the European Parliament and a reinforced majority of EU countries."
That is different than sanctions which need to be unanimous (bit of an odd discrepancy)
Balk all they want, the resolution will still be binding to them. If they don't like it they can leave the EU and take Hungary with them.
This should have been done on day one.