In an interview with the Merkur journal, Hans-Werner Sinn, former director of the IfO econometrics team, categorically rejects the idea of a total ban of gas imports from Russia: “In doing so, we are also hurting the Russians a bit—but primarily ourselves. The Russians have China as an alternative customer. The Power of Siberia pipeline already supplies gas to China, and a new pipeline, Power of Siberia II, connecting the western part of the Russian pipeline network with Beijing, has already been agreed upon. The gas volumes flowing through it can already be pledged by the Russians to the Chinese for loans. The West can therefore turn off the gas tap to Russia, but not the money tap. Its embargo policy is driving Russia into China’s arms and strengthening the very country that the U.S. will have to fear most in the future. As long as we don’t have China on board, we can’t bring Russia down with sanctions.”
The expected gloomy perspectives for the German economy have a lot to do with the fact that “the Greens want to cut off our cheap energy anyway,” Sinn says. “We still have three nuclear power plants that are operational and three that were shut down last year. In total, at least five to six power plants can be kept in operation or taken offline. And according to the EU’s stipulations, these are green energy. What will be done now is to increase the use of coal-fired power plants. This is justifiable from a safety point of view, because lignite is located on German territory. No one can take this energy away from us—but it is, of course, CO2 polluting.”
