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by pgeorgi 2368 days ago
> Speaking as a German, the fact that Germany would rather deal with and be reliant on a country like Russia is, frankly, insane and incredibly shameful.

This is about Nordstream 2 I guess. Given how natural gas comes from Russia right now (via Ukraine and Poland), how does this increaase reliance on Russia?

It certainly decreases the reliance on Poland (not much of a concern in Germany) and Ukraine (lots of trouble every few years because Russia and Ukraine can't agree on delivery and transit terms).
1 comments
praptak 2368 days ago
Decreasing reliance on Poland (and on Ukraine to a degree) is a concern in Poland though. This combined with our (Polish) politicians being idiotically pro-US makes Poland likely to oppose Merkel on this issue.

Which is sad, but you don't get to call for unity against US while simultaneously unilaterally breaking EU unity against Russia.

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pgeorgi 2368 days ago
> you don't get to call for unity against US while simultaneously unilaterally breaking EU unity against Russia

I see a difference between these two situations: Setting up embargoes is a hostile act ("do what we want or else") while setting up tools to avoid embargoes is fundamentally defensive (they don't function without an embargo being in force).

So unless Poland is in favor of the US meddling in European politics (but in that case remember: what goes around comes around; I hope the German administration will be more compassionate when - not if - Poland is on the receiving end of American ire) it should still be slightly positive on anti-embargo measures, even if they disagree on the issue in question.

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praptak 2368 days ago
Nordstream enables Russian embargoes against Ukraine and Poland. This is why Poland perceives its creation as hostile.

In theory, yes, Poland could take the long term view and support anti-meddling measures. But our current government is at idiotic levels of both anti-EU and pro-US sentiment, which is a problem that's totally separate from the Nordstream issue.

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LargoLasskhyfv 2366 days ago
Well, if LPG from the U.S. is such a good thing, why don't they buy it then, and be done with all that russian pipeline dependance? It's a FREE MARKET in a free world, isn't it?
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