Baltic countries cut off Russian energy supplies

 The Hill:

Pressure is mounting on the European Union to abandon Russian gas supplies as individual countries begin turning off the tap.

The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia became Europe’s first region to abandon Russian gas supplies entirely this weekend, and they urged other nations on the continent to do the same.

Lithuania, the first individual EU nation to make the move, declared on Saturday that the country was acting “in response to Russia’s energy blackmail in Europe,” according to a news release from the country’s Energy Ministry.

But whether this leads to other countries in Europe abandoning Russia’s gas is a big question.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner on Sunday said Russia’s crimes could not go unanswered, but on Monday argued a full-scale embargo would hurt Germany more than Russia.

“We must plan tough sanctions, but gas cannot be substituted in the short term,” Lindner told reporters before meeting with the Eurogroup, the informal body of EU finance ministers.

“We would inflict more damage on ourselves than on them,” Lindner said.

Germany is in a particularly difficult position, as it imported about 55 percent of its gas from Russia last year. The EU as a whole gets about 40 percent of its gas from Russia.

The Baltic states comparatively import much less gas from Russia. Lithuania received about 26 percent of its gas from Russia directly last year, according to Bloomberg. The country will now rely on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the U.S. and Norway, Bloomberg reported, citing the country’s energy minister.

Morgan Bazilian, a public policy professor at the Colorado School of Mines, told The Hill that Lithuania eight years ago developed a floating storage and regasification unit at the country’s Klaipėda LNG terminal, which enables the country to take in gas from other countries.

“They were able to make the statements today because of planning they had done eight years ago,” he said. “And Latvia and Estonia are sort of coming along with them.”
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It will take the larger countries longer to get alternative supplies.  Germany is probably the most reliant European country at this point.  France built several nuclear plants which much of the rest of Europe avoided.  Germany was dominated by Big Green and refused to develop its own resources and instead became dependent on Russia.  Big Green is as big a threat to western civilization as the Russians.