Martin Meenagh blog

Straws in the Wind 2

The European Commission, perhaps far too late, perhaps just in time, has proposed a coherent energy framework for Europe. Europe is at the moment torn between different but pressing national interests, the pull of Russian and North African gas, and crazy schemes of future reliance upon central Asia via the Caucasus.

This Green paper may be the most important it ever issued. In it, the EU's executive arm proposes a mixture of energy investment, Baltic, Mediterranean, North Sea and conventional power generation, the expansion of capacity and trillions of Euros in investment. The plan is a considered response to dependence on Russia.

But it may be too late. Germany is plunging into a deep recession. The UK is falling into the dark and going deeper. The eurozone is approaching a crisis point; and Russia is, beneath the surface but approaching to the water's lid, in a crisis of ten dollar oil and Kremlin manoeuvres that could bring Putin back to the presidency within weeks.

So a cold winter is coming. Germany will survive, and so will the United States; but London, as the world's city state of the past few decades, the southern part of the eurozone, and Asia are clearly going to feel the freeze.

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