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Comment by ExoticPearTree | Hacker News Reader

> "The energy crisis of 2022, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, posed a massive challenge to Europe’s integrated energy markets. Exceptionally high gas prices drove up the cost of gas-fired power plants, on top of which, France’s nuclear fleet, a crucial component of the western European electricity system, suffered unprecedented outages"

The crisis was self-inflicted by the EU on itself: Brussels dropped imports from Russia and the prices went high-sky. They could have minded their own business and Europe could have enjoyed low gas and energy prices, but no... why waste an opportunity of a war to screw something up?

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8 EU countries have a direct border with Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine. This war is very much our own business.

Nah. Russia expanding is very much real threat to EU countries. EU was minding its own business there.

"They could have minded their own business"

What, a large scale war of aggression, by far the worst that happened on this continent since 1945, that flooded the EU with a million of refugees, is somehow not our business?

And should we trust Putin the Faithless when he declares that he is not interested in the Baltic states, which belong to the EU? He allegedly wasn't interested in Ukraine before.

I think that is not quite what happened:

Russia reduced supply already in 2021 and then in 2022, too, until it ceased supply via Yamal to Poland and Germany as well as via NS1 (prior to its destruction).

Also, Austria is still using Russian gas, for example, and there are no sanctions on Russian gas other than on LNG.

Damn that one of most brain dead comments i saw in a while. Appeasement never ends well, if EU wasn't so soft on 2014 invasion, r*ssian would not dare to attack in 2022.

It's not about appeasement. It is about minding your own business and doing what is best for your citizens. And cheap gas is better than expensive gas, and by extension cheap energy is what is best.

You can downvote me as much as you want, but every government's job is to ensure the best for its people and then and only then help others. And because gas prices have tripled/quadrupled for political reasons only, I consider this a failure of all EU governments towards their citizens.

Every governments' first job before all else is to continue to exist.

A government that ceases to exist (eg. by being conquered) fails to do anything at all, let alone what is best for its citizens.

This is almost a tautology, because eg. try to make a "list of governments that do not exist".

(see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state for a view on the absolute minimal requirements for a workable state.)

So how would the governments of Germany/France/Spain to name a few cease to exist if they import gas from Russia or Iran or whatever next baddie country you can think of?

A government's primary duty to ensure its existence is not just about surviving for one more day, but also about maintaining its strength and sovereignty so it can survive in future.

By buying energy from adversaries you fund their activities against your own government. This compromises the primary duty by weakening your government in the long term.

Yeah, no.

Russia had been a "bad neighbour" for over two decades now. In terms of energy policy, worse than Soviet Union (there's reasonable argument that they traded on relatively stellar reputation soviets made when it came to energy supply to the West).

Cheap energy is not everything, and I do not mean here some nebulous (to some) concepts of decency and honour. I mean physical and political safety of the citizens. Several EU countries border Russia. All of them have history when it comes to Russian nationalism (which coincidentally is pretty big in Russian government). And Russians aren't quiet with their saber rattling. Appeasement only results in confirming that threats work to get you to comply, after all.

If anything, the current increase in combat was a wakeup call that "Wandel durch Handel" was a total failure with regards to Russia. For decades, belief in "Change through Trade" constrained possible actions to ensure safety and wellbeing of EU citizens, against belligerent who was all too happy to manipulate energy access to cause issues. Not to mention significant portion of the fossil fuels from Russia... flowed through Ukraine.

So if anything, diversification from Russian gas was at most ripping the bandaid out, something that should have been initiated at latest in 2014 (when it was proposed by Poland), but it was not the first attempt to do so. Pity it took 8 year war kicking into higher gear for some to finally understand.

Sure, diversify, but find a price similar to Russian gas, not four times more expensive and then expect citizens to bear the cost. That's my issue. It can come from the South Pole if it would cost the same or maybe 5-10% more, but not 400% more.

Or, as I think it would have been even better, have citizens vote independently with their wallets. I for example, don't buy Turkish products because I think Erdogan is a-hole and a dictator. But I don't have a problem with other people buying Turkish products. So you could pass a law where citizens would have the option do deny consuming Russian gas and opt for Caspian Sea natural gas, or LNG from Qatar or whatever and pay the appropriate price. Providers would sell them gas from their preferred source and everyone would be happy.

Except Russia wasn't even a reliable partner in terms of low prices.

And happily would manipulate supply and prices to apply pressure on the government policy.

So you have to ask yourself, is temporarily cheap gas worth losing the ability to decide for yourself? To provide the best for your citizens?

Politics is used for the parts where the free market doesn't produce good outcomes. You can't put a price tag on ~200 000 dead people (counting both sides).

Otherwise we could just do away with the whole overhead of democracy.

I hate to break it to you, but we passed the "we can't put a price-tag" on dead people a very long time ago. Every accident/conflict ended with a money settlement so people are actually walking around with a price-tag on their heads every day.

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