Ursula von der Leyen has stated that sanctions on Russia will remain in place until its economy is 'torn apart' - adding Europe's solidarity with Kiev is unshakable at a time to show determination.
Ursula von der Leyen has stated that sanctions on Russia will remain in place until its economy is 'torn apart' - adding Europe's solidarity with Kiev is unshakable at a time to show determination.
I honestly don't see what they can do at this point. Around 60% of energy that Europe was getting from Russia has no replacement. Other countries simply can't crank up their output by needed amount, and even if that was possible there aren't enough LNG terminals in Europe to offload it. Europe is going to crash hard this winter.
Seizing profits from companies is an option, but that won't fully happen of course.
Stopping the sanctions but with all the talk from the EU that will never be an option.
Or just implement clever tricks in accounting combined with lowering taxes and budget cuts in other sectors.
Right now they are going after a small part of the profits and the other shortages will be covered by the governments. Which is a very short term solution that has consequences for the future, possibly bad consequences as well.
To add to this: a price cap gets implemented as well but as far as I can tell it will mainly be for green energy and green electricity. There's no clear vision for gas, which is the number one problem.
I just watched this statement by Yanis Varoufakis https://youtu.be/NicE0-N9ux0?t=130
The price caps implemented in Greece are being used as the model for the EU-wide price caps. This model ends up paying the energy suppliers out of state pockets instead of just lowering the prices of energy to their real value (he even offers a 5% profit, it would still be 50% cheaper than current prices). It's a massive scam on the public.
Story as old as capitalism. After every crisis, capitalist end up being richer than before. It's literally why bourgeois state exists, its primary function. Covid crisis was an arena for the biggest transfer of wealth up in the history. And this now will be more serious than Covid, it's base necessities crisis. It will be tragedy for billions, but a boon for the few.