n Germany, they call it “Day X”. Businesses up and down the land are making contingency plans for what is seen as a growing likelihood that“It would be a disaster – one which would have seemed almost unthinkable just two months ago, but which right now feels like a very realistic prospect,” the owner of a hi-tech mechanical engineering company in westernsaid. The firm produces everything from battery cases for electric cars to train clutch systems.
On Friday at the Brandenburg Gate, protesters in favour of an oil and gas embargo made their point for the moral argument, with 410 red lights commemorating the victims of Russian army killings in the town of Bucha, alongside slogans asking German chancellor Olaf Scholz: “If not now, when?” Their message is stark. As long as German industry keeps taking the energy – for which it pays Moscow €200m every day – it is helping fund the atrocities.
Robert Habeck, the economics minister, has urged Germans to “turn down the thermostat” – saying that “every kilowatt hour that Germany saves harms Putin” – what some have cynically dubbed “freezing for Ukraine”. Industry too is being urged to scale back its use. Habeck triggered the first part of a three-point emergency plan last week that anticipates a slow-down or halt of gas and decides where supplies would go. Hospitals, emergency services and medical manufacturers would be prioritised, followed by private households. Industries, which use a quarter of the gas delivered to Germany would be the first expected to shut down, according to the plan.
The Federal Network Agency, which ensures fair access to gas, electricity and other vital services, has sent a questionnaire to all German businesses, asking them to effectively set out their individual arguments for a right to gas. “The question of prioritisation is a very difficult decision, requiring consideration of a wide range of consequences,” said a spokesperson for the economics ministry.
“We would get very high unemployment, many firms would go bust,” BASF chairman Martin Brudermüller has said. “It would lead to irreversible damage. To put it bluntly: it could lead Germany into its most serious crisis since the end of the second world war, and destroy our prosperity.”
Source: Energy Industry News (energyindustrynews.net)
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