Gee if only an American president had warned Europe about energy Independence
The lights are going out across Europe
The EU’s plan for mandatory gas rationing is utterly terrifying.
The EU’s 27 member states – all modern, advanced industrialised economies, some among the richest in the world – are about to start rationing their energy supplies. This week, at an extraordinary summit, EU members agreed to a European Commission proposal to slash their gas use by a punishing 15 per cent over the next eight months. From August 2022 to March 2023, the lamps will, quite literally, be going out all over Europe.
The immediate spur for this is the prospect of Russia limiting or even cutting off supplies of gas to the EU. According to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, even this worst-case, nightmare scenario is ‘likely’. European leaders were particularly spooked earlier this month when the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which supplies Russian gas to Germany, had to be shut down for 10 days for repairs. They were afraid it would
never reopen.
The EU’s punishing plan is designed to get Europe through the winter, should the Russians do the unthinkable and turn off the taps completely. If the crisis deepens, voluntary gas cuts could become
mandatory. The European Commission of unelected technocrats has also explored the use of emergency protocols which could block any country from exercising a veto on mandatory gas cuts and would also prevent the European Parliament from having a say.
As
Politico reported in the run-up to this week’s summit, European governments were ‘being asked to sign over their right to energy sovereignty’, in Brussels’ ‘most far-reaching power grab’ yet. And with some exemptions – for nations not connected to the EU’s gas and electricity networks – this is exactly what has happened. European countries now face crippling energy cuts – first self-inflicted, then potentially imposed by Brussels.
The EU’s plan for mandatory gas rationing is utterly terrifying.
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