EU not happy with its desired outcome on gas market

For more than a decade, the EU has been fighting the status quo in its gas market. Russian natural gas is bad gas and democratic US natural gas would be preferred by the EU. Long-term contracts with Gazprom are bad because... because they mean long-term planning security and stability for the EU? The free market should rather do it every minute.

In the last decade, the EU has built up a free market for natural gas. There are several large exchanges where people trade and speculate for all they are worth. Liquefied natural gas reception and transmission facilities have been set up all over the EU - the capacity of all these facilities would allow all EU gas imports to be covered by LNG.

Gazprom has been forced by EU directives to rewrite its long-term contracts with EU partners so that prices are linked not only to oil but also to prices on EU natural gas exchanges.

The EU has passed and enforced laws according to which Gazprom may only use 50% of the gas pipelines from Russia. This is supposed to increase competition, but there can be no competition because a gas pipeline from Russia can only be filled by Russia. Canada or Australia cannot inject gas into it, certain physical laws prevent that.

What does the EU gain from this? Gas prices skyrocketed in the summer of 2021 and have anchored themselves there. Now and then they shoot up into the cosmos. This state of affairs has been going on for months. The heating season has not even started yet, which means that the real time for prices to rise is still ahead of the EU. In addition, the EU's natural gas storage facilities have still not been filled to the necessary level after the last cold winter and spring. If the coming winter should be cold again, it may happen that the EU will physically run short of natural gas. Then the EU will have to decide whether to let the citizens freeze or to shut down the industry. These are absolute horror scenarios that most EU citizens have no idea exist. Most EU citizens also don't know that natural gas storage facilities exist and what they are for and what would happen if they didn't exist.

In any case, none of this should be a problem, because the EU now has a free market for natural gas and an incredible amount of capacity to absorb liquefied gas. Didn't the US want to replace Russia completely? It's been a long time since these promises were made, probably about four years.

There is only one small problem. On the free world market, the prices for liquefied gas are even higher than those in the EU (which are already unacceptably high for the EU). Qatar, the USA and Australia supply their LPG to China, Japan and South Korea because they pay even more than the EU. That's how it is, the free market. No one stands ready to meet the EU's demand at the EU's desired prices.

And who is to blame for everything now? You guessed it - Gazprom. Gazprom fulfils all contracts with the reliability of a Swiss clockwork. But the EU is currently short of gas and Gazprom is to blame. Surely Gazprom could supply additional gas beyond its contracts at bargain prices? Why doesn't Gazprom do that?

In the meantime, the EU has a new gas pipeline from Russia, through which gas could be obtained safely and at stable and predictable prices for decades to come. But the EU itself did and continues to do everything to prevent or at least halve the use of this gas pipeline and delay the start of its use. One might think that it is schizophrenic. But it isn't. The EU is not so much schizophrenic as it is infiltrated by enemies and not acting in the interests of the EU.

In the UK, the first major closures are taking place in industry because of high gas prices. Closed coal-fired power stations are coming back on stream. Oh yes, coal prices have more than doubled in the last few months, but that is peanuts compared to the price rises in the gas market.

European industry cannot compete if it has to buy its gas on the free world market in free competition with East Asia. Hardly any EU citizen knew about this. But the EU makes sure that the knowledge about it is conveyed in the most vicious way. About painful experiences, without warning.

Idiots! - one would like to shout. But no, they are not idiots. This is exactly how it was intended. Infiltrated by enemies, the EU is incapable of standing up for its own interests.

Against this backdrop, Merkel looks like an exemplary patriot, because against the toughest opposition from inside and outside, she pushed through the laying of the gas pipeline, which now provides the basis, at least physically, for at least giving Germany a stable supply of natural gas. Now it "only" has to be legally approved. But if the ass physically freezes, signatures can be set quickly.

Let's see how much ass Germany and the EU have to freeze off before ideology is exchanged for pragmatism.
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