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Politics

¿Debe Europa dejar de financiar la guerra de Putin?

May 5, 2022 Peter Singer

MELBOURNE – ¿Es correcto que los países europeos sigan pagando a Rusia mil millones de euros (1100 millones de dólares) al día por energía, sabiendo que al hacerlo financian la guerra rusa de agresión contra Ucrania?

El mes pasado, el presidente ucraniano Volodímir Zelenski dijo que los países europeos que siguen aprovechando la energía rusa se están «ganando el dinero con la sangre ajena». Dio a entender que las enormes sumas que recibe Rusia por sus exportaciones de gas y petróleo la eximen de tomarse las negociaciones de paz en serio. Mijaíl Jodorkovski, ex director ejecutivo de la petrolera rusa Yukos, que ahora está en el exilio, dijo a la BBC que un embargo a los hidrocarburos rusos sería un fuerte golpe para el presidente Vladímir Putin, que lo haría «perder más de la mitad de sus ingresos».

Pero no hay en vista una interrupción inmediata de las importaciones. El comisario europeo de asuntos económicos, Paolo Gentiloni, sólo dijo que la Unión Europea reducirá su dependencia del gas y del petróleo rusos a la tercera parte a fines de este año, y a cero en 2027. Y aunque Alemania, mayor comprador europeo de energía rusa, adelantó al fin del verano europeo el plazo que se había fijado a fin de año para dejar de importar petróleo (manteniendo la importación de gas), es posible que aun así sea demasiado tarde para ayudar a Ucrania.

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Peter Singer

Writing for PS since 2001
227 Commentaries

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, is Founder of the nonprofit organization The Life You Can Save. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life and Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One World Now, Ethics in the Real World, Why Vegan?, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In April 2021, W.W. Norton published his new edition of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. In 2013, he was named the world's third "most influential contemporary thinker" by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. He is a co-author (with Shih Chao-Hwei) of the forthcoming The Buddhist and the Ethicist (Shambhala Publications, December 2023).

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Javier CC May 6, 2022

Regarding moralism, it is difficult to understand the references to this issue if we take in consideration that the autocracy of the Ukrainian government does not differ much from the Russian autocracy. Let's be clear, we are not talking about helping the Ukrainian people, but about helping a government with deep black holes in freedom and human rights. Besides, there is another issue, at least for the common Europeans, wich is inflation, or should I say hyperinflation? (prices of basic goods such as beef have doubled, as well as tomatoes, as an examples), this is not a statistic, but a fact, just go to the supermarket and check it out). So, should European citizens suffer shortages and impoverishment because of the interest of third parties, who appeal to ideals such as freedom or climate change with a hidden and malicious intention? I think of the last 30 years (Syria, Iraq, etc.) and see only hypocrisy. History is repeating itself, but now in Europe.
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vic lai May 6, 2022

Germany (and Austria) recently "bought" Russia's natural gas and agreed to pay in rubles, but the transacted rubles were actually paid through a transaction company which belonged to Russia's Gazprom.
In other words, Germany tried to cheat by using Russia's own money to buy Russia's natural gas !
Of course, Russia wasn't dumb. Once the trick was discovered, Russia refused to sell natural gas to Germany (and Austria) for the April and May contracts, even if they were willing to "pay" in rubles.
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Well, if one says one, one will also say two.
Failing the above, Germany then overtly grabbed Novatek's taken-over infrastructure facilities in Germany in order to get the natural gas she now sorely needed, prompting Russia this time to stop supplying natural gas to the country outright.
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All these show that Germany's elasticity of demand for Russia's natural gas has always been extremely low, and no cheap substitutes for this vital resource can be found by Germany in abundance in the short and medium run.
Instead of so cheating, Germany can instead more simply, and more gentlemanly, use MMT to help herself easily get Russia's natural gas, through the German central government's issuing new treasuries to be bought by the ECB through new QEs, to get the necessary Euros to exchange for the necessary rubles.
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- vic lai May 7, 2022
  
  Now a major and well-known deficient characteristic of the Euro currency comes on the scene.
  Having no more independent central bank of her own, Germany has to rely on the common central bank of the EU, the ECB, to help supply the necessary additional Euros in new QEs tailored for Germany alone, and use them to exchange for more rubles to import Russia's natural gas, as just mentioned upstairs.
  But for the sake of fairness, many other EU countries will demand at the same time to get more Euros through new QEs in a similar manner, thereby aggravating the already high inflationary pressure now present in the whole region comprising all the EU countries.
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  One way out of the above predicament has already been suggested by Richard Werner a long time ago ------ those German corporations and importers in need of new Euros can simply borrow them from the commercial banks in their own country, through the commercial banks' creating the new Euros out of thin air, perhaps at an interest rate subsidized by the central German government.
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  - vic lai May 7, 2022
    
    America seems to be standing to gain in the current Ukraine War, but at the end of the day she may come out as the greatest loser country.
    But why ?
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    What really matters is not the first but the second Law of Demand ------ demand is more responsive to price in the long run than in the short run.
    In the short run, the EU countries, represented by Germany and France, seem willing to suffer tremendously from the expected results of their economic sanctions imposed on Russia, as a result of all those highly propped-up energy and food prices in the EU countries, even though this may also lead to lots of street riots and even regime changes in their own countries.
    But in the long run, much more fossil fuel, nuclear and new alternative energies can be found, developed, and (re-)utilized by the EU countries to substitute for Russia's current energy supplies of all kind, forcing resource-cursed Russia to eventually disintegrate politically one day in the future, like what the USSR did in the early 1990s.
    All those short-term pains are deliberately incurred by those far-sighted EU politicians with the aim of getting the final victory at the end of the game.
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    In the far future, the EU countries will no longer rely on the energy supplies from her big eastern neighbor, and Russia, having lost her biggest western customers, and with no new big customers elsewhere that could be found, will run into chronic fiscal deficit problems year-in and year-out, further weakening her domestic economy, much reducing her military expenditures and prowess, failing to maintain her expensive nuclear facilities, and so failing to hold the big country together both economically and politically.
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    The future probable disintegration of Russia into many small independent states will ensue, and they will be absorbed by the continued eastern expansion of the EU countries, thus turning the whole of original Russia into the resource-rich Canada of Western Europe.
    Geo-politics dictate that America, unlike China, being too far away, could hardly participate in this land-demarcation game.
    Now, the fully transformed EU, led by Germany and France, will be strong enough economically, militarily and geopolitically to genuinely challenge Pax Americana, and the Euro will start to take on the US dollar to try to dethrone Bretton Woods II.
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    Now we fully understand the current seemingly "suicidal" economic actions self-imposed by the EU countries as part of the Ukraine War.
    When we observe something that makes no sense whatsoever, we should figure there must be a d*** good reason for it.
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    - vic lai May 7, 2022
      
      Why didn't the EU, led by Germany and France, simply accept Russia to participate as a member of the EU after the disintegration of the USSR in the early 1990s, and so integrate all of Russia's resources into the EU, enabling herself to more easily take on Pax Americana in those early days ?
      The short and easy answer is that Russia, once she is inside, will very probably challenge both Germany and France to try to become the number one boss in the much bigger EU, and this possibility is to be sorely avoided by both Germany and France at all costs.
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      Will Russia use her nuclear weapons one day in the future to avoid her possible political and economic disintegration one day in the future ?
      Did the USSR use her own powerful nuclear weapons in the early 1990s to prevent the final demise of her own political empire at that time ?
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Michael Public May 5, 2022

The author, as is his professorship, takes a moralist stance. The problem with that is it must be balanced in every way with what is practical. Definitely the EU can do more on the payments front. However, committing Nato troops into the war could trigger Russia, with its estimated 4500 active nuclear warheads to do something utterly regrettable - the risk of a nuclear attack is admittedly low but it is a lot higher when they feel cornered militarily - remember, to Russians Ukraine is part of Russia - no different to Melbourne and Sydney.
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