3,599,040,600 € wired by Germany to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine

I don't know where people get the illusion from that you could "just get it from somewhere else" in matter of days/weeks. That's simply not the case at all. Even if we speaking about month and accepting Gas prices doubling or more it close to impossible.

But the EU can't accept Gas prices exploding to that degree.

While this article loves to blame Germany they kinda forget that part of this Gas is resold in to neighboring countries.

Also in all of Germany (through slightly more so in east Germany) most houses heat with Gas, warm Water with Gas and especially on cheaper (longer not renovated) apartments also have a Gas oven and Stove. Until ~20 or so years ago central gas heating + gas stoves where the most common way to build apartment houses, in recent years its central gas heating + electronic stoves/ovens.

Due to disagreements with Russia in recent years gas imports also have been limit to long term contracts, hence there are no (in this context relevant) gas reserves.

Also while people love to say Germany is unnecessary switching of atomar power plants the truth is what they did wasn't building new ones. All the still running power plants are already operating well beyond the time they where build for. With the Ukraine conflict Germany "suspended" the shutdown of them, but they still need to shut down. Germany has space wise not much space. It can't afford a single reactor failure at all (like Germany might literally collapse if there is a reactor meltdown with some of the more central power plants).

When the conflict started Germany did fast line some projects to become more/faster able to switch off or massive reduce Russian gas (like started building LNG ship terminals). But all of this takes time. Luckily spring is coming so it might be possible.

But if you now would stop Gas you would practically derive millions of EU citizens of an affordable way to cook, heat and wash. And with affordable I don't mean cheap, but like affordable at all.

With existing instabilities from COVID and a word wide re-emergence of facism you can guess twice if the EU would to so. Their main priority is to protect their citizens and constitution/democracy. Switching of Russian Gas now (like in a week) would likely fail both.

So it's not an option at all, at least not _yet_.

If their would be a doable way to switch of Russian Gas it would have been done. Similar if Russia could no longer send Gas they also would have done so to create massive internal instabilities in the EU.

So the Gas sells are currently something neither party (Germany/Russia) likes but neither can stop either.

Engaging economically is one thing, dependence on Russian energy is another. It was absolutely insane post-2014 to have an energy strategy with such a profound dependency on Russia. One US President warned Europe and Germany of such a dependence, and they quite literally laughed at him to his face.

At minimum Germany and the EU could have taken measures to ensure optionality in the event that Russia did as Russia has historically done.

>Given the history of Germany/Russia in particular, this mutual dependence is arguably working exactly as it was intended - cooling impulses.

It does not appear (to me) that Russia has cooled their impulses at all.

Numbers are similar for many parts of eastern Germany.

For western Germany the a slightly less, but still very high.

Gas Germany imports is also re-exported to other countries.

Some financially much worse off.

You are literally asking Germany to derive a non-small amount of their financially weaker of people of heating, cooking and warm water. And this would not just affect Germany but other EU countries too, destabilizing all of the EU.

At the same time it doesn't necessary stop the war, and might even escalate it even.

Also many of the alternative sources we could buy gas from don't have the infrastructure to ship it to us fast enough (yet).

Worse some of the alternative sources are states like Qatar, which are from a democratic, ethical and cultural point of view worse then Russia, they are just spacial further away...

The main objective of the EU is to protect it's citizens and implicitly secondarily democracy. Switching of Russian gas _now_ would fail both. Leading to internally instability we can't afford which would be a perfect presence for the word wide re-emerging fascism.

Now that's how it's now, a lot of thinks are already underway to change this.

But changes take time.