EU is faking solidarity, and Putin knows it

The 27 national leaders of the European Union (EU) love to extol the solidarity that binds their countries together. Even the words signal destiny. “Union” comes via French from the Latin unus for “one,” and solidarity from solidus for “firm, whole and undivided.” Like a good marriage, the bloc is meant to be a solidarity union.
In reality, it is no such thing, and Europe’s enemies know it. That includes Russian President Vladimir Putin and autocrats in China and afield. The EU’s biggest problem is the inability to see threats, responsibilities and sacrifices as shared.
Right now, the nail-biting is about Putin — both his physical warfare against Ukraine and his hybrid warfare against the EU. His weapon of choice is energy. Putin spent two decades making the EU vulnerable — that is, dependent on Russian natural gas and other hydrocarbons — by building a network of pipelines to gullible nations such as Germany. This year, following his invasion of Ukraine in February, he’s cocked these weapons and put his finger on the trigger.
In early summer, he throttled the gas flowing through Nord Stream 1, a big pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, to 60% of its capacity. This week, he further reduced that to 20%. He could turn it down more, or off. As a result, Europe’s storage tanks will be emptier than they should be going into winter. Putin is threatening to make Europeans shiver in unheated homes, and to force swathes of Europe’s industry to shut down.
As in any of its crises, the question for the EU is what to do about this mess. So the countries most affected — led by Germany in this case — are invoking that famous sense of solidarity. The European Commission proposed that the entire bloc voluntarily reduce its gas consumption by 15%, with mandatory cuts to follow if necessary. The reaction was inevitable, understandable — and hardly reassuring.
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and several other member states don’t rely on Russian gas, and therefore aren’t really at much risk. Moreover, any gas savings they foist on their own companies and consumers wouldn’t help Germans, because there are no pipelines to carry spare gas from Madrid or Malta, say, to Bavaria or Berlin. So why should they say “yes” to coerced rationing?
And besides, doesn’t Germany bear responsibility? Many Europeans spent years warning Berlin against building two Baltic pipelines to Russia, and against simultaneously exiting nuclear power. Smugly, Germany ignored its partners and pooh-poohed the threat emanating from the Kremlin. Germans asking Spaniards to take shorter showers now seems a bit rich. And hypocritical. A decade ago, during the euro crisis, the roles were reversed. Financial turmoil that had started in the US caused selloffs in the debt securities of member states like Greece, Spain and Portugal — even threatening an involuntary Grexit. But when these countries asked for solidarity from Germany and other northern countries, they instead got lectures on the evils of their profligacy for having borrowed too much in the first place.

—Bloomberg