The Prime Minister arrived at the Elysee Palace in Paris for a working lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron.

They are expected to discuss important issues on the EU agenda during the 90-minute meeting, including the deteriorating economic outlook for Europe and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Energy, the economy and Ukraine are expected to top the agenda for today’s meeting, which is expected to last around 90 minutes.

The two leaders shook hands and paused for photos on the palace steps before heading inside.

This visit is seen by the government as an additional opportunity to strengthen ties between Ireland and France.

The two leaders are expected to discuss topical European issues such as Europe’s economic prospects and how the EU can continue to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

However, the focus will also be on energy, with Mr Martin due to sign on the Celtic Interconnector tomorrow, linking the power grids of France and Ireland.

This event will also bring together Climate Minister Eamon Ryan and French Minister for Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

Speaking ahead of his visit, Mr Martin said the signing of the Celtic Interconnector marked a “new impetus” in relations between Ireland and France.

On Ukraine, he said that “he will discuss with President Macron how the EU can continue to provide the ‘humanitarian support that Ukraine will need'”.

The Taoiseach will also meet the Franco-Irish community in Paris and speak at an Ireland-France Business Awards ceremony.

Bangkok, Thailand
CNN
—

The big three world leaders summits that took place across Asia last week made one thing clear: Vladimir Putin is now sidelined on the world stage.

Putin, of which attack on ukraine over the past nine months has devastated the European country and rocked the global economy, refused to attend any of the diplomatic rallies – and instead found himself subjected to significant censorship as international opposition to his war seemed to harden.

A meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in Bangkok closed on Saturday with declaration which refers to the positions of nations expressed in other forums, including in a UN resolution deploring “in the strongest terms” Russian aggression against Ukraine, while noting divergent views.

It echoes verbatim a statement from the Group of 20 (G20) leaders’ summit in Bali earlier this week.

“Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and underlined that it immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” the document said, adding that there were differing “assessments” of the situation within the group.

Summit talks aside, the week also showed Putin – who is believed to have launched his invasion in a bid to restore Russia’s supposed former glory – increasingly isolated, the Russian leader being cowered in Moscow and not even wanting to face his counterparts at major global meetings.

Fear of potential political maneuvers against him if he left the capital, an obsession with personal safety and a desire to avoid confrontational scenes at summits – especially as Russia faces heavy losses on the battlefield – were all probable calculations that went into Putin’s assessment. , according to Alexander Gabuev, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In the meantime, he may not want to draw unwanted attention to the handful of nations that have remained friendly with Russia, for example India and China, whose leaders Putin saw at a regional summit in Uzbekistan in September.

“He doesn’t want to be this toxic guy,” Gabuev said.

But even among countries that have not taken a hard line against Russia, there are signs of losing patience, if not with Russia itself, than with the ripple effects of its aggression. Energy tensions, food security concerns and spiraling global inflation are now weighing on economies around the world.

Indonesia, which hosted the G20, did not explicitly condemn Russia for the invasion, but its President Joko Widodo told world leaders on Tuesday “we must end the war”.

India, which has been a key buyer of Russian energy even as the West has shunned Russian fuel in recent months, also reiterated its call for “find a way to resume the path of ceasefireat the G20. The final declaration of the summit includes a sentence saying: “The era of today must not be one of war” – language that echoes what Modi said to Putin in September, when they met met on the sidelines of the summit in Uzbekistan.

It is less clear whether China, whose strategic partnership with Russia is strengthened by a close relationship between leader Xi Jinping and Putin, came to any change in position. Beijing a long time ago refused to condemn the invasion, or even refer to it as such. He instead decried Western sanctions and amplified Kremlin talking points blaming the United States and NATO for the conflict, though that rhetoric appeared to be echoed somewhat in his state-controlled domestic media in recent months.

In side meetings with Western leaders last week, however, Xi reiterated China’s call for ceasefire through dialogueand, according to the readings of his interlocutors, agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – but these remarks are not included in the narrative of the talks by China.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi later told Chinese state media that Xi had reiterated China’s position during his bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G20 that “nuclear weapons cannot not be used and a nuclear war cannot be waged”.

But China’s foreign policy watchers say its desire to maintain strong ties with Russia likely remains unwavering.

“While these statements are an indirect criticism of Vladimir Putin, I don’t think they are meant to alienate China from Russia,” said Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Xi says these things to a public who wants to hear them.”

Russian isolation, however, looks even more stark against the backdrop of Xi’s diplomatic tour of Bali and Bangkok this week.

Although the Biden administration has named Beijing – not Moscow – the “seriousest long-term challenge” to the world order, Xi has been treated as a valued global partner by Western leaders, many of whom have met with the Chinese leader for talks aimed at increasing communication and cooperation.

Xi had an exchange with US Vice President Kamala Harris, who represents the United States at the APEC summit in Bangkok, at Saturday’s event. Harris said in a Tweet after noting a “key message” from Biden’s G20 meeting with Xi – the importance of keeping lines of communication open “to responsibly manage competition between our countries.”

In an impassioned plea for peace at a meeting of business leaders on the sidelines of the APEC summit on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to draw a distinction between Russian actions and tensions with China.

While referring to US-China competition and growing confrontation in Asian regional waters, Macron said: “What makes this war different is that it is an assault on international rules. . All countries … have stability thanks to international rules”, before calling on Russia to return “to the table” and to “respect the international order”.

The urgency of this feeling increased after a Russian-made missile landed in Poland, killing two people on Tuesday, during the G20 summit. As a member of NATO, a threat to Polish security could trigger a response from the entire bloc.

The situation defused after an initial investigation suggested the missile came from the Ukrainian side in an accident during missile defense – but highlighted the potential for a miscalculation that could spark a global war.

A day after this situation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pointed out what he called a “split screen”.

“What we see is a very telling split screen: as the world works to help the most vulnerable, Russia is targeting them; as world leaders reaffirmed our commitment to the Charter of the United Nations and to international rules that benefit all our peoples. President Putin continues to try to shred those same principles,” Blinken told reporters Thursday night in Bangkok.

As International Meetings Week approached, the United States and its allies stood ready to take this message to our international peers. And while strong messages have been sent out, it has not been easy to build consensus around this view – and differences remain.

The G20 and APEC statements both acknowledge the divisions between how members voted at the UN to support its resolution “deploring” Russian aggression, and say that while most members “strongly condemned the war, “there were other points of view and different assessments of the situation and the sanctions.”

Even making such an expression with caveats was an arduous process at both summits, officials said. Indonesian Jokowi said G20 leaders were up until “midnight” to discuss the paragraph on Ukraine.

The nations of the groupings maintain various geostrategic and economic relations with Russia, which has an impact on their positions. But another concern some Asian countries may have is whether moves to censor Russia are part of a US push to weaken Moscow, according to former Thai foreign minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon.

“Countries are saying we don’t just want to be a pawn in this game to be used to weaken another power,” said Suphamongkhon, a member of the advisory board of the RAND Corporation Center for Asia Pacific Policy (CAPP). Instead, framing Russia’s censorship around its “violation of international law and war crimes that may have been committed” would touch on aspects of the situation that “everyone here rejects”, he said. declared.

Russia’s rejection along these lines may also send a message to China, which itself flouted an international ruling refuting its territorial claims in the South China Sea and vowed to “reunite” with Taiwan’s self-governing democracy. that she never controlled. , by force if necessary.

While this week’s efforts may have increased the pressure on Putin, the Russian leader has experience of such dynamics: prior to Putin’s expulsion following his 2014 annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, the Group of Seven (G7) was the Group of Eight – and it remains to be seen whether international expressions will have an impact.

But without Putin in the fold, leaders stressed this week, the suffering will continue – and there will be a hole in the international system.

This story has been updated with new information.

As G20 world leaders meet in Bali this week, the economic and geopolitical consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war will weigh heavily on the summit.

After centuries of war, Europeans settled into what they believed to be an era of peace. World War II was supposed to be the last conflict where Europeans killed other Europeans on a large scale.

The Balkan Wars and the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s were an uncomfortable reminder of Europe’s violent tribal past. Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Slavs and Visigoths have fought endless battles since the end of the Roman Empire. But now, in the civilized 21st century, could Europe hope for peace?

The European Union (EU), which began as a trading community after World War II, was designed for precisely this purpose. Countries that do business with each other rarely fight each other. The cordial agreement worked. The nations of the EU have lived in peace for more than 50 years and have prospered.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has awakened Europe from its gentrified slumber. An estimated 50,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been killed since the war began on February 24, 2022. Over the years, Europeans have quietly observed over 5,00,000 dead civilians in Iraq, Iran, Yemen and in Afghanistan.

But the more than 50,000 people who were killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war were relatively prosperous white Europeans, not poor Arabs, Afghans or Iranians. The anger against Russia for disrupting the peace and prosperity of Europe runs deep. Not only have more Europeans died in a conflict between two European states since World War I, but the Russian-Ukrainian war has also ravaged European economies and disrupted the lives of Europeans.

Germany has plunged into its deepest recession since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In Britain, 20% of all households are limiting their food and fuel consumption. Many are likely to spend the winter choosing between “heating and eating”. Skipping meals to save money is now commonplace in low-income UK households hit by food inflation.

Has the past come back to haunt Europe? In the 1600s, most Europeans were relatively poor. Sanitation was rudimentary. Plagues and diseases were common. Looking east and west, Europe saw opportunities. Riches awaited them in Asia and Africa and in the arid lands of America and Australia.

The era of colonial conquest and the transatlantic slave trade had arrived. Between the 1600s and 1800s, per capita incomes in Western Europe soared. Maritime countries prospered the most from Asian and African plunder: Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Intra-European disputes soon broke out over the division of the spoils. Britain and France fought for India and North America. Spain and Britain are fighting over the Caribbean. Portugal and Spain battled for South America.

The strangest fights involved the new African colonies of Europe in the 1880s. The great European powers had noticed, during the cruel transatlantic trade of African slaves which had lasted for centuries, that Africa had more wealth than They never imagined it, but fighting for them would harm the interests of every European nation. They decided instead to collaborate in the plunder of Africa.

The US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) dispassionately explains European strategy: “In 1884, the leaders of fourteen European countries and the United States met to discuss the control of Africa’s resources. Known as the Berlin Conference, they sought to discuss the partition of Africa, establishing rules for amicably distributing resources among Western countries at the expense of the African people. Among these fourteen nations present at the Berlin Conference, France, Germany, Great Britain and Portugal were the main players. In particular, representatives from Africa were missing.

“One of the tasks of this conference was that every European country that claimed possession of part of Africa would bring ‘civilization’ in the form of Christianity as well as trade. King Leopold II of Belgium promised this and the Congo was officially recognized as Leopold’s personal possession. Extraordinarily rich in natural resources – including ivory, palm oil, timber and rubber – Leopold would seek to increase his personal wealth at the expense of the environment and the Congolese people.

But the newly prosperous and militarily powerful European nations could not abandon their centuries-old habit of waging war against each other. With most of Asia and Africa colonized by 1900, Europe embarked on two continental wars in 1914-18 and 1939-45. He called both “world wars”, but they were essentially European wars. Their origin lies in old disputes in the heart of Europe. The main belligerents were Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the Soviet Union.

British and French colonies in Asia and Africa were drawn into European warfare, their troops serving primarily as cannon fodder on the front lines and trenches of Western Europe. After colonizing and impoverishing India, Britain offered Indian youth attractive wages to wage war against Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Indians have signed up.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in the United States in December 1941 turned a two-year-old European war into a global conflict. But the source of the conflict was in the major European capitals: London, Berlin, Paris and Moscow.

In 1884-85, the infamous Berlin conference between 14 European countries decided how best to carve up colonial Africa. The deal was torn up, ironically, by Berlin in 1914. The two world wars between 1914 and 1945 would cost millions of European lives, the majority in what are now Russia and Ukraine.

Seen through the prism of history, the Russian-Ukrainian war is the unfinished business of Europe’s violent past. For gentrified Europeans, lulled by years of peace and abundant trade, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought energy crisis, inflation and recession. This aroused both anger and shame. Europeans killing Europeans on the battlefield is a memory they thought they left behind.

The barely contained fury in European capitals over India’s nuanced stance on the Russian-Ukrainian war is erupting behind closed doors. How dare a former European colony not respond to Europe’s bids?

In the 1600s, European emissaries sailed to India to seek lucrative trading rights. As this decade unfolds, European business leaders are returning to India in search of markets in what they know will be, by 2028, the world’s third largest economy.

At the end of the last intra-European war, Russia will emerge weaker, Europe less secure, China a growing threat and the United States ideologically polarized.

At the G20 summit in Bali, as India prepares to assume the group’s presidency for a year, it will be seen by many as the engine that helps propel the world forward.

The writer is editor, author and publisher. The opinions expressed here are personal.

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Job losses in the tech industry pose no “particular threat” to Irish public finances, the EU says.

European Commission economics chief Paolo Gentiloni said the finance minister’s “cautious” budgeting insulates the economy from recent staff cuts announced by companies including Twitter, Meta, Intel, Zendesk and Stripe.

“I don’t envision [this] a particular threat, honestly, because I saw the path, after a deep crisis, of Ireland as very positive, so I am quite confident on the budgetary path, ”Mr Gentiloni told the Irish Independent by video call from his office in Brussels.

“I worked a lot with my friend Pascal Donohoe. He is committed to prudent fiscal policies. This is his message, I would say, permanent, and I have full confidence in this message.

Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath said yesterday that the “major correction” in the tech sector will affect income tax and corporation tax revenues “across the board”, and admitted that there is a real risk of recession in Ireland next year.

Irish corporation tax revenue is expected to hit a record €20 billion this year, with a handful of large pharmaceutical and IT companies accounting for around half that amount.

A September finance ministry report warned that up to €6 billion in corporation tax could be windfall revenue and warned of a ‘substantial loss’ in income tax if shock for the multinational sector.

Mr Gentiloni’s comments came after the Commission launched a bid to scrap an “unrealistic” fiscal rule forcing heavily indebted countries to cut spending, even in times of crisis.

It is the deathblow to an austerity policy put in place after the financial crash of 2008 and effectively ended by the Covid pandemic.

“Is this a contribution to avoid austerity? Yes, but I wouldn’t overstate that contribution,” Gentiloni said.

EU rules – frozen during the pandemic but set to return in 2024 – require governments to keep budget deficits below 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) and debt below 60%.

They also demand that heavily indebted countries reduce their excess debt by 5% a year and eliminate it within two decades, a rule the Commission now admits undermines growth and investment.

Under the Commission’s proposed changes, the bloc’s 30-year-old debt and deficit limits would remain in place, but highly indebted countries – where debt is over 90% of GDP – would have more time to reduce. this, ending the 5% rule.

This means that the next Irish government will have less room to spend in the same way as the current coalition has, unless another crisis hits.

Ireland is considered a moderately indebted country by EU standards, with debt reaching 55% of GDP in 2021, and the budget deficit is expected to turn into a surplus this year thanks to buoyant tax revenues.

But the 2021 debt amounts to more than 100% if measured against the government’s preferred measure of modified gross national income (GNI*), which removes patents and aircraft leasing. It should fall below 90% of GNI* this year.

The rule change announced this week extends the deadline for debt reduction from three to four years – and to seven years for countries that commit to growth-enhancing reforms and investments.

Highly indebted countries like Italy or Greece will still have to cut their net spending and reduce their deficits over time, although states facing “exceptional circumstances” are given an opt-out option.

Eurozone governments could be fined if they fail to meet their commitments, while any country could face an EU funding freeze.

The EU also emphasizes net primary expenditure – expenditure less one-off tax revenues, interest payments and unemployment benefits – rather than the “structural” budget balance, a complex and difficult to measure concept.

The rule change must get approval from EU governments before it can be written into law.

The British economy is clearly in trouble. Growth has stalled, interest rates are rising and the Treasury is softening the public for another dose of austerity measures.

For some, the explanation for these horrors is simple: Britain is paying the price for its decision to leave the European Union. Forget the impact of the worst pandemic in a century. Forget what Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine did to energy prices. Brexit is the “gorilla in the room”.

Oh good? Or is this a classic case of confirmation bias, where someone starts with a preconceived opinion and then finds evidence to support their argument? As in: I always said Brexit would be a disaster; the economy is bad; Brexit is to blame and here is the proof.

There’s no doubt that the UK has serious economic problems – including a chronic trade deficit and a poor record on investment – but they predate the Brexit vote in 2016. Britain n has not recorded a merchandise trade surplus since the early 1980s, and inflation-adjusted wages have barely increased since the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. full throttle in 2016, it seems unlikely that more than 17 million people would have voted to leave the EU.

Britain is not the only country facing labor shortages. The German government said earlier this year that it was reducing Red ribbon to facilitate the recruitment of workers from Turkey, and its major industrial sector union, IG Metall, has demanded an 8% increase. France reported 300,000 unfilled vacancies in its hospitality, with a similar image in Spain. According to the Office for National Statistics, at the time of the 2016 referendum, 2,335,000 people born in other EU countries were employed in the UK. At last count, that total stood at 2,389,000. The number is down slightly from a peak of 2,508,000 at the start of 2020, but there has been no mass exodus of workers from the EU.

The UK is not alone in facing cost of living pressures either. The annual inflation rate for the 19-nation Eurozone currently stands at 10.7%, higher than the UK’s 10.1%. US inflation peaked at just over 9% over the summer.

The European Central Bank is pushing interest rates higher because it fears that tight labor markets will lead to a price-wage spiral; the same goes for the Federal Reserve in the United States. The upward pressures on inflation are caused by the pandemic, post-pandemic supply chain bottlenecks and the inability of central banks to act quickly enough when problems started to appear . All of Europe is facing recession this winter, with Germany in particular paying a heavy price for its dependence on Russian gas.

All sorts of dire predictions were made for the UK economy at the time of the Brexit vote: house prices would fall, unemployment would rise by 500,000 and the economy would immediately slide into recession. None of this happened. The economy has slowed down.

Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England, takes a darker view. He argued that Britain’s economy was 90% the size of Germany’s before Brexit, but only 70% of today.

Professor Jonathan Portes, an economist at King’s College London who is not a fan of Brexit, described the comparison as “absurdity” because it’s about measuring the value of the savings at the prevailing exchange rates. This is not the normal method economists use to assess the relative performance of countries, as comparisons are heavily influenced by currency movements. The pound, for example, is almost 10% higher than it was during a recent low against the US dollar, but that doesn’t mean the UK economy is up nearly 10% from the US economy over the past month.

A recent post by Briefings for Britain, a Brexit support body, offers a different perspective than Carney. He notes that the cumulative growth of the United Kingdom is slightly higher than that of Germany since 2016; that trade with the EU – despite the extra administrative burdens faced by small businesses – has picked up and that Britain continues to attract more foreign direct investment than any other European country.

Of course, it could be argued that the UK would have had even more investment and even more exports had a different decision been made on June 23, 2016. Over the years, the argument of the anti-Brexit camp changed. Where it used to be “Brexit will crash the economy” is now “the economy would be better off without Brexit”.

The Briefings for Brexit (a comprehensive work, worth reading no matter which side of the argument you’re on) says these counterfactual analyzes are wrong. He concludes: “A careful reading of the evidence shows that while there is still little evidence that Brexit is doing much to help the UK economy, there is also not much evidence of harm.”

It rings true. There was no Armageddon. The economy is adjusting, although that process has been made more difficult by the pandemic, war and Liz Truss’ brief tenure as prime minister. If the effects of Brexit tended to be exaggerated, then the impact of the pandemic and the lockdowns that accompanied it tended to be downplayed, perhaps because the most fervent anti-Brexiters also wanted more lockdowns. longer and stricter.

After six years, the case for Brexit remains what it always has been: an opportunity to look at an underperforming economy in a new light and to do things differently. Whether this opportunity will be taken or wasted remains to be seen, but there is no gorilla in the room, just a loud squealing mouse.

This is according to an editorial by Arseny Yatsenyuk, the former Ukrainian Prime Minister, written for Atlantic Council.

This is the latest and most extreme escalation in Vladimir Putin’s long energy war against the West. For years, the Russian dictator has used energy as a weapon in his efforts to subjugate Ukraine and divide Europe. He now hopes to freeze Ukrainians into submission while using supply cuts to pressure European leaders into dropping support for Ukraine.

The coming months will determine the outcome of Putin’s energy assault. If he succeeds in his goals, Ukraine will face the horrors of a prolonged Russian occupation while the Kremlin gains unprecedented political and economic influence over Europe that could last for decades. Alternatively, if Russia suffers a decisive defeat, the threat from Moscow will quickly recede and Europe will be greatly strengthened. Winning the energy war will pave the way for Europe’s future security and prosperity.

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Europe’s reliance on Russian energy resources predates Putin and dates back to the height of the Cold War. In 1972, Soviet deliveries accounted for about 4% of European gas consumption. In 2021, Russia supplied nearly 40% of European gas. As Moscow’s market share has gradually increased, Russia’s ability to manipulate prices and trigger crises has also increased. Most Europeans now recognize that this dependence on Russia represents a major strategic mistake. Fortunately, it is not irreversible.

Ukraine’s experience over the past eight years can offer valuable insights. From 2014 to 2016, the Ukrainian authorities achieved considerable success in reducing the dependence of their country’s energy sector on Moscow. By implementing transparent market tariffs and targeted subsidies, Kyiv was able to support the most vulnerable segments of the population. The Ukrainian government has also encouraged energy efficiency by introducing reduced tariffs on limited volumes and offering financial support for efficiency measures. In two years, Ukraine has been able to reduce its consumption by 20%.

Ukraine also ended corrupt, multi-billion dollar practices in the energy sector that had long served to enrich Ukrainian oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin. Before the 2014 Dignity Revolution, Ukraine was one of the biggest importers of Russian gas. By November 2015, direct imports of Russian gas to Ukraine had completely ceased. These measures allowed Ukraine to reduce Russian influence and partially disarm Putin’s energy weapon. Europe must now seek to implement such drastic measures.

First, Europe must put plans in place for possible energy rationing and mutual assistance to deal with impending energy supply shortages. European leaders must agree on a united response to the near-term energy challenges facing the continent; all EU members should be ready to help each other through reciprocal cross-flows if necessary.

Policy measures are also needed to address structural weaknesses. Europe’s green energy transition has a major flaw: it relies too heavily on Russian gas imports. In order to adapt to the current realities of the energy sector, industrial decarbonization requirements should be relaxed for the time being with the reopening of oil, gas and coal production. This is already the case in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Others should follow.

Tax incentives should be put in place, particularly for the development of deep wells. A similar approach allowed Ukraine to significantly increase its domestic gas production in 2015-2019. The EU will also have to resume operation, at least temporarily, of coal-fired power plants. Austria and Germany are ready to do so.

Before the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion in February 2022, nuclear power plants produced around 55-60% of Ukraine’s electricity. Since 1991, these nuclear power plants have been operating without incident. The EU must recognize that nuclear energy is safe, inexpensive and environmentally friendly. Another key task is the development of renewable energy resources. Here, Germany is in the lead with the share of renewable energies in national consumption expected to reach 80% by 2030 and with 2% of land resources reserved for solar and wind farms.

In addition to securing alternative sources of gas, Europe must also strengthen energy diversification by increasing the continent’s capacity to accommodate liquefied gas deliveries. This process is already well underway and is now gaining additional momentum due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin’s increasingly overt militarization of gas exports to the EU.

The construction of LNG terminals in Poland has already allowed the country to move away from Russian gas. Two LNG terminals will enter service this winter in Germany. Meanwhile, Spain has six LNG terminals that provide maximum capacity well in excess of the country’s domestic needs, with negotiations underway for the construction of a possible gas pipeline to Germany.

Europe’s top energy priority remains preventing an energy collapse in Ukraine and thus avoiding a series of negative consequences such as a massive influx of refugees. Ukraine urgently needs EU help to repair the country’s energy infrastructure following Russian airstrikes. This is just as important as the provision of enhanced air defense capabilities and should take place in parallel. It is also crucial that steps are taken to ensure adequate border crossing capacity to accommodate coal deliveries that cannot pass through Ukraine’s partially blocked seaports.

It will be a difficult winter for all Europeans, whether they face blackouts and bombs or heating problems and sky-high energy bills. Putin hopes to militarize the winter and force Europe to surrender, but giving in to the Kremlin would be disastrous for Ukraine and the EU. Instead, Europe must accept the challenge of overhauling its entire energy system. This is the only way to break the continent’s debilitating dependence on Russian energy and ensure that Putin’s energy war ends in decisive defeat.

Arseny Yatsenyuk is the former Prime Minister of Ukraine (2014-16). He is currently chairman of the Kyiv Security Forum

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