Today, the European Union contributed $1 billion toward Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Tomorrow, the EU will contribute another $1 billion to the Kremlin’s ongoing carnage of Ukrainian citizens. And $1 billion the next day too.
The payments will continue to pour into Russia until, we are assured, but hardly comforted, the EU cuts that amount by a third by the end of 2022. By the year 2030, just eight short years from now, the EU hopes to wean itself off of Russian energy sources.
By that date, if Europe has not ceded Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, Finland and other nations to Russia, Putin will finally be taught a lesson.
The billion-dollars-a-day per diem comes in the form of coal, gas and oil that the EU purchases to keep its economy humming along while schools and maternity hospitals are being obliterated in Mariupol and Kyiv and the bodies of women and children are piling up in morgues, while millions of refugees with an uncertain future disperse throughout Europe. (The United States, not as dependent on Russian energy sources, banned exports of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas and coal earlier this month.)
“But the sanctions!” the EU will argue. Look at Russia’s faltering economy!
No. Instead, look at the body count and the humanitarian crisis at your borders. Calculate the future costs of resettling those refugees or rebuilding Ukraine — that is, if the war and occupation end in Europe’s favor, which isn’t a sure bet at all. And certainly not if the war spills into neighboring NATO countries.
In a revealing interview with the BBC, Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, carefully parsed Europe’s reasoning for continuing its addiction on Russia’s vast oil and gas reserves. After pointing to the economic sanctions it has imposed, and the military and humanitarian aid the EU is providing, the prime minister admitted: “Europe is also responsible for having functional economies.”
Functional economies always trump rescuing a democratic nation. Note that Norway, which is the 10th largest exporter of oil in the world, is one of the great beneficiaries of the rising energy costs caused by the current war. No sense turning off that spigot of kroner just yet, not when Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is increasing handsomely with every $140 barrel of oil sold on the world market.
BBC moderator Zeinab Badawi was not about to let the prime minister off the hook. She said: “You are trying to fight Russian tanks with the banks, as it were, and it’s just not going to be fast enough.”
Stoere, whose country is not a member of the EU, countered: “I don’t buy your equation. Europe has to still fuel its economy, in one way or the other. They are buying oil on the international market. … They cannot take down their own economies and at the same time resist what Russia is doing.”
When Badawi noted that “Europe is failing” this test of its resolve, Stoere responded: “To be honest, if Europe were to stop buying oil and gas (and coal) from Russia, it will not stop the war machine fighting in Ukraine, regretfully.”
Stoere, the head of one of the NATO nations that shares a border with Russia, continued with some pretzel logic regarding Europe’s commitment to renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and the rather oxymoronic label for the source known as “safe nuclear.” He believes that the current high costs of gas and oil will force European nations to quickly transition to renewables.
However, in the short term, the opposite is taking place. Europe is turning toward cheaper, more polluting types of energy such as coal. The United Kingdom is even considering lifting its 2019 ban on fracking for shale gas as a way to offset the spiraling energy costs to British families. The U.K. was on the verge of capping its fracking wells with concrete, but now there is pressure to keep them open.
As Bloomberg reported earlier this month, Frans Timmermans, the EU’s climate czar, told lawmakers on the environment committee that “because of what’s happening in Russia, there are no taboos in the choices member states can make.” Timmermans “left it up to each country to decide whether they will make up for burning more fossil fuels in the short term by boosting investments in renewables,” the report said.
When Badawi pointed out these contradictions to the Norwegian prime minister, he dismissed her concerns. “But this is the drama of war,” Stoere said.
He wrapped up the interview with these remarks: “We have to really stand by our own values, protect them, support Ukraine to the very potential of what we can do, look beyond and see what we can do to help rebuild Ukraine once this is over.”
As Russian bombs mercilessly hit civilian targets under Putin’s scorched earth strategy, and as Europe pays for “the drama of war” by purchasing Russia’s vast energy reserves, it is impossible to “look beyond” to any kind of future for the millions of innocent victims, killed, trapped and held hostage in Ukraine.
Stephen J. Lyons is the author of five books of essays and journalism. His newest book is “West of East.”
