Germany fears energy crisis triggers 'angry winter'

【Reporter Connection】

Guangming Daily correspondent in Berlin Wang Huaicheng

The shadow of the energy crisis is hanging over Germany, causing unease between the government and the public.

At a summer press conference in Berlin this month, a reporter asked German Federal Chancellor Schoelz whether rising energy prices would trigger social unrest. Scholz said, "No, I don't think there will be that kind of riot in this country," on the grounds that Germany is a welfare state and the government will support its citizens in a crisis. However, the reasons given by Scholz are too general to be convincing to the reporters present.

In an interview with German television last month, Scholz said that he was very worried about social unrest in Germany in the winter, and that "if many people receive a few hundred euros more than their energy bills in the fall, it may detonate the 'social powder keg'."" Asked if he could guarantee that people wouldn't freeze in the winter, Scholz didn't answer in the affirmative, saying it depended on a lot of things happening around the world, and that Russia's disruption of gas supplies could be an important factor.

Under-energy prices have soared

Before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Germany's dependence on Russian gas was close to 50%. In the wake of the conflict, German politicians saw natural gas as a tool for Russia to put pressure on the West. In order to sanction Russia, Germany decided to stop using the newly built Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and gradually wean itself off its dependence on Russian gas. Data released by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs in July showed that Germany's dependence on Russian gas had fallen to 26 percent.

According to Germany's plan, starting from the summer when there is little gas, it will seize the storage of natural gas, and the gas storage tank will be filled to 95% by November 1, so that Germany may survive this winter. However, the responsible officials recently told the media that although the gas charge is currently 75%, Germany may not be able to complete the plan given russia's gas supply situation. This indicates that further increases in the price of electricity, gas and oil in Germany are inevitable, and germans have a hard time this winter.

On August 19, the Russian side announced that it would suspend the supply of natural gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline again from August 31 to September 2. The Russian side stressed that in the case of the completion of the maintenance work and the absence of technical failures in the installation, the gas transmission capacity will be restored to 20% of the full load of the pipeline, that is, 33 million cubic meters per day. However, many people are worried that the Russian side will not restore gas supply on time, and panic has begun to spread in the market. From August 22, European gas and electricity prices soared, with European benchmark gas prices soaring by 21% at one point, and German electricity prices breaking the 700 euro mark for the first time to a record 710 euros/MWh.

After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in order to prevent a chain reaction in society, the German government took a variety of countermeasures. Earlier, Economy Minister Habeck visited Qatar to seek to buy liquefied natural gas, but returned empty-handed, because Qatar was only willing to sign a long-term contract with Germany, and Germany only wanted to solve the urgent need. Scholz went to Norway in mid-August to seek to buy natural gas, but the Norwegian prime minister was embarrassed because Norway's production capacity had reached its limits. A few days ago, Scholz visited Canada, although the two sides signed a large energy order, but this only involves the cooperation between the two countries in hydrogen energy development, and the fastest will be in a few years before the effect can be achieved. Germany's rapid fires are looking for natural gas internationally, pushing up international gas prices and causing dissatisfaction with Germany in the not-so-rich gas-hungry countries.

In order to ensure the interests of energy companies, Germany allowed energy import companies to charge additional fees and pass on the increased costs of imported natural gas to consumers, which caused great dissatisfaction among consumers and declined popularity in Scholz. The results of a poll released by the German "Sunday Photo" on the 21st showed that more than 60% of the respondents were dissatisfied with the performance of the government led by Scholz. In the German government, the coalition of the three parties has spoken on major issues that make it unclear who is at the helm of Germany.

The economy is affected by the rise of public resentment

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has been the hardest hit by the energy crisis. The German economy has stagnated since the second quarter of this year, becoming the worst performing economy among the major countries in the euro area. The International Monetary Fund cut Germany's 2023 growth forecast by 1.9 percentage points to 0.8 percent in July, the largest cut of any major economy.

The euro has now fallen to an all-time low, its lowest level since the euro was introduced in 2002, which has further pushed up Inflation in Germany. The Federal Statistical Office report revealed that Germany's inflation rate has hovered at a high of around 8% in recent months, and the pressure on people's lives has increased, with retail sales falling in July since 1994. Overall, the Bundesbank reports that German inflation could reach 10 percent this fall, and high inflation could trigger a double double heave of wages and prices, further exacerbating inflation.

Marcel Vladscher, director of the Berlin-based German Institute of Economic Research, published the institute's study a few days ago and argued that most Germans would have to endure the disappearance of Germany's prosperity for a long time. "Especially the bottom 40 percent of society, who have almost no savings, are currently spending all their income on subsistence, and they are even more afraid to consume non-necessities in the future," he said. ”

According to the opposition CDU MP Tolsten Frey, "we cannot alleviate people's current economic burden through state aid" and that "the growing debt not only undermines the future of our children, but also generates new drivers for further inflation".

Some Germans said that we wanted to bleed Russia through sanctions, but Russia has not yet trembled, and the Germans will tremble in the cold winter. Some people told reporters that in order to prevent the needs of epidemic prevention and ventilation, their children wore cotton clothes in the classroom last winter, and if they let the children sit in the classroom wrapped in winter clothes because of insufficient heating, they would not agree.

In order to prevent social unrest caused by the energy crisis, Germany's powerful and intelligence services have recently issued a rare personal warning. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Filser told Der Spiegel that if prices continue to rise and hit many hard, coupled with a new wave of outbreak peaks in the autumn, it could fuel a wave of protests in Germany. She also said that in many of Germany's eastern regions, left- and right-wing political forces and other extreme forces are gathering to join forces to protest rising prices, just as they continue to protest the government's anti-epidemic measures.

Miller, head of the Brandenburg Constitutional Protection Bureau, even said the extremists were expecting a "winter of anger" in Germany. Witthout, head of the Lower Saxony State Constitutional Protection Agency, said they monitored that in some places protests against anti-epidemic policies were transitioning substantially to, or seamlessly, protests against the "energy crisis and rising prices." Officials at the Constitution Protection Agency of North Rhine-Westphalia have found that extreme forces are taking advantage of the social unrest brought about by the energy crisis and rising prices, with more and more organizations and groups paying more attention to day-to-day politics than ever before and interpreting them with conspiracy theories on social media.

Public opinion here believes that the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the energy crisis and the rise in prices have brought crisis not only to Germany, but also to Europe as a whole. It is expected that about one-third of UK households could fall into energy poverty by October, and that share could reach 40% by January next year. At the same time, multinational energy companies such as Shell and BP are making a lot of money. This will trigger huge social discontent, with waves of protests likely to surpass even those of the 2008 financial crisis.

(Guangming Daily Berlin, August 29)

Guangming Daily ( 2022-08-30 edition 16)