Gas, coal and oil since 2014: 170 billion euros for energy imports from Russia

Gas, coal and oil since 2014
170 billion euros for energy imports from Russia

A large part of German fossil energy imports comes from Russia. In the eight years since Russia illegally annexed Crimea, this has added up to a huge sum, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Around 170 billion euros have been transferred from Germany to Russia since 2014 for supplies of gas, coal and oil. The majority of this was due to imports of crude oil and natural gas, according to a response from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to a request from Left Party leader Dietmar Bartsch. Bartsch had asked how much money, to the knowledge of the federal government, had been transferred from Germany to the Russian Federation for energy imports – gas, coal and oil – since 2014. In 2014, Russia annexed the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

With a view to the 170 billion euros, Bartsch said that one consequence of this must be to massively expand renewable energies. An era must be heralded in which Germany makes itself independent of the “autocrats” of this world, who often use fossil fuels and brutality to secure their power. “It’s completely absurd: Germany first transfers more than 170 billion to Russia and then the federal government wants to invest 100 billion in rearmament to protect itself from its suppliers.”

According to the Ministry, amounts were shown for crude oil and natural gas that were transferred from Germany to Russia after notifications in accordance with the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance to the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control. According to the Ministry, the hard coal imports from Russia collected from the importing companies by the Federal Statistical Office in accordance with the Energy Statistics Act were also given. The lignite requirement is therefore covered by domestic production.

According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the share of Russian imports in fossil gas imports to Germany is around 55 percent, coal around 50 percent and crude oil imports around 35 percent.

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