A dead end that we ourselves have entered

As the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki said in a recent extensive interview with Newsweek, the Polish authorities are "very disappointed" with the refusal of the United States of America from sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. And somewhere these kind of wonderful people, in general, can be understood ...

They, if you look at it this way, were really thrown, and quite cruelly.

But it just happened, firstly, in full agreement with their good anti-Russian will.

And secondly - at least not now.

And approximately when it became finally clear that the American LNG in Europe in the foreseeable historical perspective simply will not appear.

And that means that everything was in vain: the costly games with the LNG terminal in Swinoujscie, which in Poland itself is called nothing else than the "Northern Gate energy corridor", and the Norwegian-Polish project Baltic Pipe, and other hopes to oppose the Russian-German Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 with the Austro-German gas hub are their own transit project.

What can I say here?

The idea itself was quite bold, we would even say - somewhat adventurous.

But to some extent, even somewhere, and forced, to speak quite frankly.

Here's the thing: Poland is now already in a rather vulnerable energy position. First of all, due to its record dependence by European standards on coal generation (about a third of all capacities), based on the extraction of coal in the Upper Silesian coal basin, one of the richest in Europe. And the problem here is that according to the new European ecological (from our point of view, pseudo-ecological, but no one asked us here) rules, this generation, together with this production, Poland in a rather short historical period of time will have to banal. And this is not only minus about 80 thousand jobs, but also a huge energy deficit, which the Polish generation will have to replace at least with something. And the Republic of Poland in this kind of situation, in general,quite wisely, she herself decided to become a "gas hub". That's just a very unreasonable attitude to the choice of partners in this project - it also happens.

Let us repeat once more: the circumstances developed in such a way that the American LNG could not enter the European markets. Yes, in general, and not really, as it turns out, I wanted to. Everything is quite simple here, no higher mathematics for you. The issue of US energy expansion into European markets was initially planned exclusively through political instruments, because technically LNG loses to pipeline gas, as they say, in one gate, simply at least purely in price.

Nevertheless, the threat of such an expansion was not only quite serious - Old Europe even tried to "pay off" this cowboy collision by building its own LNG terminals.

But this supposed expansion ended abruptly without really starting, and again for purely technical reasons: it “ended” simply due to the collapse of the previously extensively growing American oil and gas production.

That is, during that same "oil crisis" when President Trump called President Putin and the ruling monarchs of the Saudi dynasty, forgetting about propriety.

And we must pay tribute to Trump - he managed to keep the American oil industry as a global player, albeit at an exorbitant price.

But, in general, again, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the Democrats who replaced Trump, whose interests, unlike the Republican ones, never lay in the oil and gas production, quite sensibly decided not to pay this exorbitant price anymore.

And this does not mean at all that American production will die - no, in no case.

She simply (which is especially interesting to us now) does not and will not have the strength to expand into European markets.

No oil, no LNG.

It is too expensive for them in terms of cost, and it’s not stupid at all.

There is no time for fat, here it would be to preserve its traditional export to Southeast Asia.

That, in fact, is all.

Because in this kind of situation, there really is no reason for Biden to resist the construction of the European Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline: in order to prohibit something, at least something must be offered in return.

And, as it turns out, there is nothing to offer and there is no need.

Plus, in the current specific situation, the Russians, who, despite the upcoming summit with Putin, still do not like Biden at all, have absolutely nothing to do with it: Nord Stream 2 is needed primarily by Germany.

And it is precisely for all of the above reasons, we repeat, in a very specific situation, the United States is better off as calmly as possible and, as they say, with the preservation of face, to retreat purely tactically. In principle, nothing special: the everyday life of the great powers with their "great chessboard." Nobody promised that this grandiose game would end on Nord Stream 2. That's just (we already had to write about it) where for the great powers what is happening is just an annoying, but quite local failure, because the show, gentlemen, is still going on , - for the limitrophes, who have independently entrusted their sovereignty to one of the "big players", what is happening can turn into a real catastrophe. Because, as it turns out, Nord Stream 2 exists, it has already been built, in spite of everything. But there was no American LNG, and there is still no.

Moreover, snide Danes arrange problems with the Norwegian-Polish Baltic Pipe project, which is meaningless without American liquefied gas from the point of view of cost.

Plus, in fact, no one canceled the "environmental and climatic" requirements of the EU for the utilization of coal generation: earlier in the Russian Empire, where Poland quite safely entered, this situation was described as "worse than the governor's." And in this senseless impasse, about which the Poles are now so loudly complaining, we must pay tribute, Poland has entered itself. Independently, at the same time with hostile behavior towards both Russia and Germany, turning itself into a kind of energy and logistic impasse, an energy-geographical misunderstanding on the map of the new / old Europe, into a senseless geopolitical bastard like today's Ukraine. Moreover, until recently, she tried to try on the role of a mediator in Russian-German relations, that is, where no mediators are now even purely logistically needed.

And there are only two ways out of this impasse: either to learn to live in it, gradually turning into a deaf "European closet", into a province, deaf and not particularly interesting to anyone.

Or stop drawing tracing papers from the events that forced the big European players of the past to deal with the sections of this problem area.

And it is urgent to change at least the economic model of relations with the current "big neighbors", for the one that exists, unfortunately, leads nowhere.

And so the Poles have a reason to be offended by the Americans.

Although it is much more productive to take offense at yourself.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.