BERLIN—Last weekend, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other top officials traveled to the northern port city of Wilhelmshaven to inaugurate Germany’s first floating terminal for liquified natural gas (LNG). The terminal, the first of five planned at ports across the North and Baltic Seas, is one part of Germany’s strategy to survive this winter—and the next, and the one after that—without the Russian gas imports it and other European Union countries have become deeply dependent on.
“This is a good day for our country and a good signal to the whole world that the German economy will be in a position to continue being strong, to produce, and to deal with this challenge,” Scholz said. “When we said that, for example, such a terminal should be built here in Wilhelmshaven this year already, many said that’s never possible, that it would never succeed. And the opposite is true.”
Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 10 months ago, European countries like Germany have learned the hard way what it’s like to live without Russian energy. From the start, the Kremlin has gone all-in on energy politics, seeking to use Europe’s energy reliance as a weapon to sow discord among European leaders and weaken the EU’s unified front in supporting Ukraine. It’s mostly failed.
