The Kremlin Takes Center Stage in Europe’s Fuel Fiasco
On Friday’s The World This Week, journalists discuss how the gas crisis in Europe is a bitter reminder of who’s in control: The Kremlin.
Europe is in the midst of a fuel crisis that has led to record gas price surges, and it comes with a reality check: The continent is dangerously dependent on Russia for energy.
“In Europe, we’ve got ourselves into this position where almost the entire continent is reliant on Russia’s gas supply, and up until now, the Russians have been pretty careful about making sure that at least northwest Europe, the big investors, get a good clean supply of gas from them. And it’s kind of never been interrupted over the years we’ve relied on them,” said The Daily Beast’s Nico Hines.
He added: “But if you look at what they’ve done with countries in competition or in conflict with them, suddenly… the supply gets cut and those nations feel a huge crippling impact. We’ve given the Kremlin such a vast amount of power over our entire economies. If they wanted to cut off the gas supply to Europe, it would have been a huge and devastating effort.”
Putting the future of European energy in the hands of the Kremlin could be a disaster in the making, according to The Guardian’s Jon Henley.
“The current Kremlin regime is not exactly a friend of the European Union,” he said. “The politics of energy are clearly going to be a huge debate and potentially a massive problem over the coming decades.”
Watch the full The World This Week episode on France 24.