Pay Close Attention to Russia’s Small Neighbor on Energy

Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. European politicians are scrambling to pin the blame for a painful surge in wholesale energy prices on reliable punching-bags — the shift to cleaner power sources, the price of carbon, greedy utilities — while conveniently missing the bigger picture of dependency on Russian gas and internal battles over what should count as ‘clean’.

France is using the opportunity to spread the gospel of nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse gas emissions, even though under Emmanuel Macron the sector is being cut back. Germany under Angela Merkel has begun to phase nuclear out completely, increasing reliance on gas as a result. Both have pushed behind the scenes to influence EU regulations in their favor. Central and Eastern European countries, meanwhile, have criticized Western states’ focus on renewables — no doubt to Vladimir Putin’s delight.