When in the domestic media recently they are more and more actively saying that “the European authorities have begun to understand something” - in the application of the energy conflict with Russian energy producers - then, of course, there is a certain amount of slyness in this.
And colleagues - both Russian and Western European - are well aware of this cunning: the simplest laws of economics are quite accessible to any more or less educated person, even if he is in some way biased purely ideologically.
So the authorities, if they didn’t understand something, then they guessed a lot.
Something else is more interesting here - namely, the confusion of these same European authorities, when it finally dawned on them that they would have to explain themselves on this very pressing issue for everyone not only with overseas overlords and former Russian partners.
But also with its own population.
Which the European bureaucracy has long lost the habit of taking into account in its complex political equations.
And let's be honest, I just stopped taking it seriously.
Just as an example: if this were not so, then the green Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Energy of Germany Robert Habek would never have come to “talk” with the workers of the refinery in the city of Schwedt: to an enterprise that previously quite successfully worked with raw materials from the oil pipeline "Friendship".
And now, by the will of the German authorities, it naturally stops literally in real time.
As a result, more than a thousand people, at least in the literal sense of the word, may end up on the street without a livelihood.
And accordingly, they went out to protest, and these protests were, as you understand, a little tougher than any multi-colored parade of any LGBT +.
And then Vice-Chancellor Robert Habek comes to these people, all so green, well-fed and beautiful.
And he begins to explain to hard workers that sanctions against Russia are, in fact, a universal European debt.
And the fact that they now have to suffer a little is normal in principle.
Moreover, this is only the beginning of the struggle for the fulfillment of this very duty.
In Germany, due to sanctions, many enterprises will still stop.
And what is there, one asks, to be indignant: it is better to proceed to the economy mode.
For example, start washing less.
And sorry, there is.
What can I say here: the German language in this sense is no less expressive than Russian.
And therefore, the simply booed Khabek needs to be happy at least from the fact that the indignant hard workers gave him the opportunity to carry his “green” legs from their rally.
Although the current German vice-chancellor is right about one thing: the process has just started, so the problems of the families of workers from Schwedt are local in comparison with the almost “perfect storm” approaching Germany.
This, as the hostile Russian folk saying goes, is only “flowers”.
Although the "berries" too, and in the very short-term historical perspective, it would be, admittedly, somehow slightly naive not to expect.
So, in particular, at the end of last week, the head of the Federal Price Agency of Germany, Klaus Müller, was forced to admit that in the very near future, German consumers will literally be “shocked” by the upcoming gas payments: the figures in payments can grow at least three times.
And this is based on the current, and so not too comfortable, to put it mildly, for most respectable burghers price level.
Muller, of course, blamed the Russian Gazprom for this.
Although he admitted in passing that the ten-day maintenance of the pipeline, in connection with which Gazprom will soon stop supplying blue fuel to Europe, is carried out every summer.
But this, according to the German official, is still unacceptable "in the current harsh conditions."
Into which, by the way - but this is completely silent - the German side drove itself, with its own hands: the epic story of the repair of the Siemens turbine is so revealing here that it’s even somehow difficult to comment on it.
Because it's very funny.
Not to mention the fact that the new Nord Stream 2 pipeline, blocked by the current German authorities “by delaying certification”, has long been filled with gas and is quite ready for operation.
Yes, this was done under American pressure, but this is a “good reason”, this is the basis of modern democracy, and before that, Russians always, as they say, “got into a position”.
And now for some reason they refuse.
Moreover, their own population begins to ask various not very pleasant questions, and sometimes in a very rude form, like Vice-Chancellor Khabek.
And who is to blame for all this, you ask?
By the way, a little more about Habek.
Which is now becoming a very, to put it mildly, "popular character" in Germany.
Judging by his words, which last Saturday were cited by the American agency Bloomberg, since Moscow’s strategy includes plans to “undermine European unity”, the Germans also need to prepare for the well-memorable citizens of certain regions of Russia due to the “beautiful nineties” rolling blackouts.
And also to the “deep recession” and the “domino effect” with the closure of production, to mass unemployment and other joys of life - which, by the way, we here in Russia, including the author of this material on RT, have almost written about since the beginning of this year.
However, RT is also banned in Germany, as is Nord Stream 2, so it is up to those who arranged this catastrophe with their own hands to tell the citizens of Germany about the impending catastrophe.
And this is a necessary, albeit not easy, process under the current conditions.
But now the energy industry, and after it the entire economy of the “industrial heart of Europe”, is plunging into a systemic crisis at such an extreme pace that it is simply impossible not to notice it.
Moreover, there is no way out of this “extreme immersion” with the current trends, sorry, at least in the short term historical perspective.
And to understand this, now you don’t even need to wait for the coming European winter.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.