‘Firms will go bust’: Germany prepares for a future without Russian gas

theguardian.com:

In Germany, they call it “Day X”. Businesses up and down the land are making contingency plans for what is seen as a growing likelihood that Russian gas will stop flowing into Europe’s biggest economy.

“It would be a disaster – one which would have seemed almost unthinkable just two months ago, but which right now feels like a very realistic prospect,” the owner of a hi-tech mechanical engineering company in western Germany said. The firm produces everything from battery cases for electric cars to train clutch systems.

The speaker did not want to be named, or for his company to be identified, in part for fear, he said, of appearing to support Russia’s war by making the case that if the gas is turned off, his century-old business “will likely not survive”. But he says he is in a deep quandary and feeling very vulnerable, as he is not only heavily reliant on gas – the cost of which has already soared – but also on metals such as nickel and aluminium, much of which comes from Russia.

Germany gets around 50bn cubic metres a year or 55% of its gas from Russia, the largest by volume of any EU country, and by extension, the biggest share of any large European economy.

Two possible, not unlikely scenarios are being mooted: one envisages Moscow deciding to cut off or reduce supplies in retaliation for sanctions; the other sees Germany giving in to mounting pressure to support an EU energy embargo according to which the recipients would effectively call Putin’s bluff by cutting themselves off from Russian supplies.

On Friday at the Brandenburg Gate, protesters in favour of an oil and gas embargo made their point for the moral argument, with 410 red lights commemorating the victims of Russian army killings in the town of Bucha,