Years of complacency have landed Germany in a pickle over energy. Still a sense of urgency is lacking from Germany’s wider conversation with itself
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe bewilderment felt by Katz is now shared by many Germans. Some years ago Europe’s richest country slipped into a state not quite of slumber, but of sleep-walking. Newly reunited and lulled by their own economic and diplomatic success, Germans settled into a comfortable belief that their system was working near-perfectly.
Put simply, years of complacency have landed Germany in a pickle. Yet even as the establishment comes to terms with the scale of its dilemma, and with the immense challenge of changing course, Germany’s conversation with itself remains strangely parochial and lacking in urgency. Even more odd, in a country that prides itself on the openness of its democracy, is the failure to account for what went awry.
Yet perhaps Germany’s biggest own goal was scored against its own natural-gas industry. Germans lack the luck of the neighbouring Dutch, whose giant Groningen field, a mere bicycle-ride from the border, has gushed out some $500bn worth of gas since 1959 . But neither are Germany’s own reserves puny. At the turn of the millennium Germany was pumping out some 20bn cubic metres of natural gas a year, enough to meet close to a quarter of national demand.
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