No. of Recommendations: 2
And more:
The energy dimension makes the contradiction even starker. As I documented previously, the European Union consumes 38 exajoules of fossil fuel energy annually but produces only five domestically. Europe is a vassal dependent on foreign energy suppliers while simultaneously lecturing those suppliers about sustainability standards. When Qatar threatened to halt LNG deliveries unless Brussels watered down its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the EU caved immediately. If you are a global energy vassal, you have no cards to play.
This becomes critical when discussing European rearmament. The strategy demands NATO members spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, put in writing in the so-called Hague Commitment agreed in June. European leaders claim this target is impossible. Yet if EU states had simply met the 2 per cent standard from 2006 to 2020, they would have generated approximately 1.1 trillion in additional defence spending. Instead, decades of free-riding created the European Commission’s estimated 1.8 trillion defense capability gap.
This whole article ought to be required reading. And a warning.
