From Big Thinks's Pessimists Archive, March 22, 2022:
Germany finds itself once again allowing a murderous dictator to run rampant in Europe, though this time it is due to incompetence and technophobia rather than malice.
- Germany has a long-standing aversion to nuclear power. As a result, its economy is addicted to Russian fossil fuels.
- Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany refuses to ban Russian oil and gas — such is the extent of its energy dependence on an enemy nation.
- Germany wants to lead the world to a clean energy future, but technophobic, anti-nuclear sentiments will prevent that.
On January 1st, 2000, a new leader of Russia ascended to power: Vladimir Putin. After his official inauguration that summer, Western leaders greeted him with open arms, hoping to leave Cold War attitudes in the 20th Century. British Prime Minister Tony Blair would call him a reformer, visit him in the Kremlin, and welcome him into number 10. President Bill Clinton stated that “no doors can be sealed shut to Russia” and would even float the prospect of welcoming Russia into the EU and NATO. Gerhard Schröder, then leader of Germany, would embrace Putin too, first politically, then personally and professionally.
Nuclear power? Nein danke
Elected in 1998 to lead a coalition with the Green Party, Schröder ran on the promise of phasing out nuclear power, a politically popular idea in Germany with a history of direct action and its own iconic tagline: “Atomkraft? Nein Danke.” (“Nuclear Power? No Thank You.”)
After years of negotiation, an agreement was announced with energy companies in June 2000: the nuclear phase-out would finish around the beginning of 2020. The day after this announcement, Vladimir Putin would make his first major trip to meet a foreign leader: Chancellor Schröder, along with German business leaders who were encouraged to invest in Russia. In the proceeding years, Germany would ramp up trade with Russia, justified by the popular post-Cold War presumption that trade would decrease the chances of conflict. A big part of that trade would involve buying Russian energy.
Schröder and Putin’s bromance would blossom in the following years and decades. Schröder would call Putin a “flawless democrat,” defend the questionable Ukrainian election of the Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych, and sign a deal for a Russian gas pipeline — later named Nordstream — in his final days as Chancellor. The project was run by the Russian company Gazprom, which was majority-state owned and headed by Matthias Warnig, a former Stasi officer. Days after Schröder left office in 2005, he joined the Nordstream project as the head of its shareholders committee....
....MUCH MORE
Related:
March 14 - "Putin's KGB Masterstroke: Fracking Banned in Europe"
