Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#301

Post by ericmay » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:12 PM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #283

saiya-jin wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well USSR is as dead as russian soldier somewhere in muddy Ukraine. There were good reasons why it broke down, and those reasons are still present. Its plain simple - nobody sane, moral and free wants to be in pact with russia. Who remains are dictators, bullies and murderers. Thank god Trump didn't succeed in effectively disbanding Nato. Imagine what Europe would look like now if that happened (as Bolton mentioned i…

> Thank god Trump didn't succeed in effectively disbanding Nato. Imagine what Europe would look like now if that happened (as Bolton mentioned in cca 2018). This take bothers me, it's a sound bite repeated at nauseam with no backing what so ever. As a Romanian, I kept a close watch on US politics in Eastern Europe. Nothing that Trump did was pointing to disbanding NATO, on the contrary, he increased the US presence i…

Truth is somewhere around here, I'm not sure where exactly:

"Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.

In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States"

I'd say ultimately whether this was some sort of good-natured negotiating tactic with European allies or not, Trump lost enough credibility that his motives are/were seriously concerning and questionable. This didn't come from nowhere.

> He wanted Germany and Europe off of Russian gas

Maybe but again I think the motives are questionable. Did he want this because he spent years antagonizing Europe and decided that it made sense for oil and natural gas companies who donated to his campaign to get in on the fun by selling American gas to Europe, or because he had a genuine concern for geopolitical interests and saw how Putin was acting? I'm sure you can understand that many don't really trust Trump or his motivations to do anything. For example, was he advocating for getting Germany and Europe off of Russian gas and on to American gas, or did he also advocate for nuclear power and renewables (both, not just one of those)?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-presiden...

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#302

Post by mort96 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

lobochrome wrote: post #259

mort96 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what's the contradiction here? Merkel's and Germany's international leadership can be good at the same time as Germany's dependency on Russia and China is problematic from a national security perspective. Those two aren't mutually exclusive.

Maybe. I guess you can celebrate her for her "international leadership" (what are we exactly celebrating by the way?) and at the same time acknowledge that she completely missed the interests of her constituency.

I mean, "international leadership" are your words. I don't know what Merkel personally has done (or what her "useful idiots" have personally done, or even who those "useful idiots" are). But you are positing that there's a contradiction between Germany's dependency on China and Russia, and Merkel's perceived achievements in international leadership. I'm just saying that there's no contradiction or hypocrisy in being in an influential international leadership role, while being from a country with its own national security issues.

Essentially, I'm saying that the last part of your argument falls under the "vaguely gesturing at imagined hypocrisy" category.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#303

Post by blub » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #254

Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

Let's be fair: this was a massive, strategic aim of the Russian state. Germany didn't randomly fall into this situation, there has been decades of influence, bribery, and espionage in Germany to develop that dependency. Kids may need to be reminded that Germany has only been reunified for 32 years and Berlin was divided from the USSR controlled East Germany by a physical wall. Russia is is so motivated to expand its…

When you put it like that, one almost has to feel sorry for Germany, bravely fighting influence, bribery and espionage every step of the way only to fall prey in the end to the Russian state which maliciously supplied the German industry with gas.

But this is not at all bad for the US, it’s great! Russia is isolated and weakened and the EU is strangulated by yet another wave of refugees and weakened economically, becoming even more dependent on the US for security.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#304

Post by kergonath » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:20 PM UTC

diskapital wrote: post #122

beberlei wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gazprom attenpted to change owners and default the company. In that case the gas contracts would have been void including its negotiated prices (under currebt market value) and the currency in euro instead of rubbels.

> Gazprom attenpted to change owners and default the company. Is that illegal? I wonder about rule of law. We talk about this as sacrosanct here in the "West". It is funny that when push comes to shove (in my perception at least), we're quick to break the rules to get the outcome we want. When say a 3rd world country does something like this in response to a "Western" multinational's actions (perhaps a controversial…

I don’t know where you are in “the West” but here (Western Europe), selling a company is often subject to some kind of oversight, particularly something as critical as energy or with large companies. And artificial bankruptcies to evade contracts are actually fraud.

Not making any point about your example, which was indeed despicable behaviour.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#305

Post by cycomanic » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:26 PM UTC

lobochrome wrote: post #241

Barrera wrote: post #225

> Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany's gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release. Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia. The answer seems to be "one step at a ti…

Now consider that Germany has a huge dependency not only on the supply side to China but also on the demand side for machinery equipment and vehicles. In addition, we have a huge dependency on the US for national security. So we are dependent on Russia for Energy, on China for Manufacturing and industrial demand of our most important industrial sectors and are protected by the US from a National Security point of vie…

That's a weird argument, you will essentially not find one country in the world that is autark from others. If they are building stuff they depend on raw products from other countries and other countries to buy their things. If they consume things they are dependent on others again. I mean even if you're the centre of semiconductor manufacturing in the world like Taiwan, you still depend on others to build your machinary (pretty much all the EUV systems are build by Asml a Dutch Company)

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#306

Post by ganzuul » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

1over137 wrote: post #219

Traster wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dispute between Germany and Russia. I'm not sure what US assassinations of middle eastern war lords have to do with it.

Hmmm, the larger dispute is between NATO and Russia. The USA is the head of NATO.

If this insane idea that the sovereign nations of Europe have no agency of their own comes from American "news"-branded edutainment, I dearly suggest you defenestrate your television set. It is clearly rotting minds.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#307

Post by ivan_gammel » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #296

ivan_gammel wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a false assumption that stopping oil and gas imports will somehow stop the invasion and funding of Russian army. It will not, so it's better to focus on more practical and sustainable steps.

During the war with IS there were constantly talk about how funding terrorism goes directly into funding the wars, be that people who directly gave them money or people who bought their drugs. I also often see the police say things like "don't buy things from criminals, it directly fund more criminal activities". We have international agreements against blood diamonds and conflict resource, all focusing on eliminatin…

This is just a theory that does not take into account the circumstances of the Russian invasion. In the long term, it does make sense to stop importing oil and gas from Russia to prevent the future aggression, because it will indeed weaken the regime. In the short term, if EU stops buying oil and gas immediately, Russia still has: 1) possibility to export to China and other non-aligned markets (many countries which abstained in UN vote, are the client states which will not support the embargo). 2) enough resources to continue funding military procurement for many months 3) semi-autonomous economy that will survive even total trade embargo with the West, albeit on a lower technology level

The effects of oil and gas embargo will be felt by Russian population earliest by the end of summer, effectively being a punishment rather than a deterrent. We should aim to end the war long before that and stop talking about this and other populist but unrealistic ideas like no-fly zone.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#308

Post by kergonath » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

diskapital wrote: post #278

spyder wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Is that illegal?" "The German economy ministry said Gazprom Germania violated foreign trade law." "Germany's economy ministry justified the takeover by saying it had not granted permission for the Gazprom Germania acquisition. Permission is required, the ministry said, if the investors are not from the European Union and "critical infrastructure" is involved."

> "The German economy ministry said Gazprom Germania violated foreign trade law." And that's sufficient basis for a legal system to reassign ownership of assets? Just for debate, lets say Google search is critical infrastructure and Google unilaterally took some action that upset the German economy ministry, would the legal system enable German authorities to take over assets that Google had within Germany and/or are…

Broadly speaking, countries are sovereign and can do almost anything they’d like in this context. It is most of the time limited by treaties and trade agreements, so I suppose Russia could make a stink and complain with things like the WTO.

You’d have to dig into the specifics of German law in this case, but this is really unsurprising. Sales are routinely blocked and companies nationalised (with compensation, in civilised countries, though the fraud aspect could change this in this instance).

Gazprom Germania can believe the government is wrong and take it to the courts, but the legal argument seems sound.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#309

Post by newbamboo » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:32 PM UTC

newaccount74 wrote: post #271

jonhohle wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the previous six years, it struck me as completely bizarre that there was any pushback for bringing manufacturing or energy production back locally. It doesn’t have to be nationalist, it’s just adding redundancy in case your trading partner realizes they have over powered leverage. No business wants to concede to a vendor that they are irreplaceable. Edit: Likewise, watching Germany dismantle its nuclear infra…

Energy politics in the public discourse was often dominated by environmental concerns, and there wasn't a singular focus on CO2 as we have now. Gas has been a popular choice, because it is a lot cleaner than coal / light oil / wood from a local pollution perspective. It burns cleanly, so switching to gas heating significantly reduces pollution in cities. Nuclear energy is NOT clean, because it has the huge unsolved p…

Well it’s hard to accept German stupidity as the official narrative but there it is. Fear of radiation Uber Alles.

Re: Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania

#310

Post by thriftwy » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

nautilius wrote: post #285

thriftwy wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kids may need to be reminded that Berlin was divided from the USSR controlled East Germany by a physical wall They should also definitely remember what they did to cause this.

What did the East Germans do that their fellows in the U.S./British/French occupied zones did not do?

Their own 80286 clone?