The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has said he is working as fast as he can to extricate Germany from its dependence on Russian gas and pursue new energy supplies, as pressure mounts on his government to come up with solutions to tackle a looming crisis.
On the first day of a three-day visit to Montreal, Scholz met Canada’s prime minster, Justin Trudeau, on Monday. “Canada plays a really, really central role for the development of green hydrogen,” Scholz said. “That’s why we are very glad to be able to expand our cooperation in this area on this occasion too.”
The two leaders are set to sign a deal for Canada to supply clean hydrogen to Germany, but Trudeau downplayed the likelihood of a separate agreement on direct exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), due to logistical constraints and costs.
“There are a number of potential projects that are in the books for which there has never been a strong business case,” Trudeau said. “It needs to make sense for Germany to import LNG from the east coast.”
Scholz thanked Canada for allowing the export – despite sanctions on Moscow – of a refurbished turbine that Russia said it needed to continue providing natural gas to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
The fact Russia has yet to request the needed turbine, which is currently in Germany, showed the Russian claims about technical issues hampering gas supplies to Russia were a ruse, he said.
“Russia is no longer a reliable business partner,” Scholz said. “It has reduced gas deliveries everywhere in Europe, always referring to technical reasons that never existed. And that’s why it’s important not to walk into [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s trap.”
The visit is taking place amid a heated debate in Germany triggered by growing concerns that Russia may completely close down its already considerably reduced gas flows to the country.
The government faces pressure to prolong the life of Germany’s three remaining nuclear power stations, which are due to go offline by the end of the year as part of a withdrawal strategy announced in 2011.
In recent days there have even been calls for it to reinstate the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, which was mothballed by the German government as a reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz said at the weekend a decision on the nuclear power plants would probably be made in the coming days. But Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice-chancellor and economy minister and the leading Green, stressed this would only help to decrease gas consumption by about 2% and said “for the little it would bring us, it’s the wrong decision”.
The government has dismissed out of hand the idea of resurrecting the defunct Nord Stream 2 project, repeatedly referring to the idea as “morally reprehensible”. But the fact it has been brought up at all illustrates the extent to which the pressure is growing on Scholz to come up with workable strategies to cope with the unprecedented situation, which threatens to plunge the German economy into recession and leave millions facing soaring energy bills and freezing homes.
The deals struck with Canada will do little to help Germany in the near future, with this winter and next expected to be beset by an energy shortage and record prices. The head of the intelligence service has warned of the dangers of unrest from a radicalised minority consisting of rightwing extremists and conspiracy theorists, which he said were planning to exploit the situation. Leading economists have warned that rising energy bills on top of other living cost hikes will push increasing numbers of Germans into poverty and could trigger social unrest.
Against this backdrop the government is keen to stress that once the infrastructure is in place to support hydrogen and LNG Germany will be on a safer footing. The optics of Scholz and Habeck landing in Montreal with their delegation are seen as sending an important immediate message to German voters that the government is taking action. In recent months it has often come across as stunned into stasis as it reeled from the shock realisation that Europe’s largest economy had made itself dangerously dependent on a single energy source in its pursuit of a green transition.
Ahead of the visit, Habeck said Germany was “staring in the face of a very critical winter”.
Habeck told German TV that the rapid filling up of national gas storage facilities – which are currently at just under 80% capacity – was encouraging, but warned that Russia could yet further reduce the flow and there was therefore no room for complacency.
At present only about 20% of the levels of gas due via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline are reaching Germany.
