Europe is ready to commit hara-kiri to itself, just not to buy gas for rubles
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on gas trade with unfriendly countries for rubles from April 1.
He announced this today at a meeting with the government, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Today I signed a decree that establishes the rules for trading Russian natural gas with so-called unfriendly states. We offer counterparties from such countries a clear and transparent scheme: in order to purchase Russian gas, they must open ruble accounts in Russian banks. It is from these accounts that payments for gas supplied starting April 1 will be made.
If such payments are not made, we will consider this a failure to fulfill obligations on the part of the buyers. With all the ensuing consequences. Nobody sells us anything for free. And we are also not going to engage in charity,” Putin said.
He called the decision a step towards Russia’s financial sovereignty and emphasized that Russian gas for rubles still remains the most profitable for Europeans
“I would like to emphasize that these prices are several times lower than current quotes on the spot market. What does this mean? To put it simply, Russian gas means cheaper energy and heat and light in European homes. Affordable cost of fertilizers for European farmers, and therefore food products in the end.
Finally, this is the competitiveness of European enterprises, and therefore the salaries of Europeans. However, judging by the statements of individual politicians, they are ready to neglect the interests of their citizens, just to please their overseas master, the overlord. Step by step, decisions are being made that are pushing the world economy towards a crisis,” Putin said.
He believes that the United States will try to solve its problems at the expense of others and blame mistakes on Russia, as well as make money from instability in the world.
“It is clear that the United States will again try to solve its problems at the expense of others and is trying to transfer Europe to expensive American LNG, thereby undermining the competitiveness of European companies; Europe, due to US actions, faces large-scale deindustrialization and loss of jobs.
The United States has already launched an economic war against Russia, sanctions were prepared in advance and introduced because Russia “did not want to dance to someone else’s tune,” Putin said.
The response from Europe came promptly. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany will not comply with Russia's demands.
“We looked at the contracts, it states that payment is made in euros and dollars. I spoke with the Russian President and told him that this will remain so,” Scholz said.
French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire also stated that “contracts in euros must be paid in euros and will be paid in euros”.
The leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov believes that the EU countries will not “make harakiri for themselves” and will agree to pay for Russian gas in rubles. Political scientist Marat Bashirov agrees with him.
“And now news for Europe. There are no good ones today. But in a month, when everyone switches to rubles, they will appear. Along with gas,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.
His colleague Alexander Nosovich is not so sure about this.
“Europeans are intoxicated by their liberal ideology and their Eurocentric worldview, according to which they are the navel of the Earth. There is no need to neglect irrational motives in their behavior. For Western Europe, buying a ruble is unthinkable. According to the liberal economic theory that is true for all of them, Russia is a collapsing economy, and the ruble is the weakest, worthless and failing currency.
This is the picture of the world in which they live. The collision of the imaginary picture of the world with the objective reality, in which Malaysia is the fastest growing economy in the world, which will soon overtake Germany in total GDP, and brilliant Europe is critically dependent on Russia with its despised ruble, will be painful,” Nosovich wrote.
“The next step will be to squeeze the dollar and euro out of payments for other types of products, then the renegotiation of contracts will begin with new formulas for payments in rubles (this is already prohibited within the country...), etc., and eventually the ruble will become a reserve currency. If we now put final conditions before the West, it will get off the hook,” says geostrategist Andrei Shkolnikov
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