Full ban on Russian energy? EU continues to commit economic suicide

This is not about “stopping Putin’s war machine” but about pre-empting any normalisation of EU-Russia relations — at the cost of deepening dependence on the US and accelerating deindustrialisation

The EU’s decision to eliminate all Russian energy imports within two years would deliver the coup de grâce to Europe’s already flailing industrial base.

Not only would Europe be forced to import even larger volumes of higher-priced LNG — primarily from the US — but, as Russia redirects its LNG to more distant markets, transport costs will rise, pushing up already volatile global gas prices and making imports to the EU even more expensive.

So what’s the logic behind this seemingly suicidal policy? This is not about “stopping Putin’s war machine” — little more than a fantasy, and they know it — but rather about pre-empting any future normalisation of EU-Russia relations. The new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowing to do “everything” to ensure the Nord Stream 2 pipeline never reopens fits this same logic.

The EU leaders’ staunch opposition to any re-engagement with Russia is partly due to their deeply entrenched hostility towards Russia. But there are also deeper geopolitical dynamics at play. The global LNG market is supply-constrained. Few countries have excess capacity. The United States — currently expanding its LNG export infrastructure — is uniquely positioned to profit. Trump has made LNG central to his trade policy, pressing the EU to buy more as a way to narrow the trade imbalance. This makes a mockery of the EU’s talk of “strategic autonomy”. Publicly defiant of Trump, EU leaders are quietly implementing his energy demands — even if it accelerates Europe’s economic decline.

As one German commentator observed: “The planned ban on Russian gas imports has little to do with the war in Ukraine — and everything to do with the American trade war. The EU is capitulating to Trump. The cost of that capitulation will be devastating, especially for Germany”.

EU elites, however, also have more self-interested reasons for pursuing this strategy. The ever-present spectre of the “Russian threat” provides EU elites with a perfect justification for their ongoing crackdown on political dissent, accelerating militarisation of European societies and further supranationalisation of the bloc’s politics. The threat must remain alive — not because it’s real, but because it’s politically useful.

Ultimately, it should be clear that resuming Russian gas imports makes sense on every level: it is cheaper, more reliable, environmentally cleaner than LNG, and it would also help stabilise geopolitical relations with Moscow. Which is precisely why it’s no surprise that EU leaders are doing the exact opposite: deepening dependence on more expensive, more volatile, and more polluting LNG from across the globe, accelerating Europe’s deindustrialisation and fanning the flames of confrontation with Russia.

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Thomas Fazi

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