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With most Europeans not heating their homes during the summer, and air conditioning relatively rare, the situation is tolerable for now and officials in all four countries insisted that the drop in supply did not represent a threat.
But if Russia were to continue delivering 40 percent of previous gas flows over the course of several weeks, that could worsen, said Klaus Müller, who heads Germany’s federal agency responsible for gas, electricity and telecommunications.
“It is imperative that we fill the storage facilities now to get through the winter,” Mr. Müller told the Rheinische Post.
Mr. Müller and Mr. Habeck rejected the Gazprom’s explanation of technical issues and suggested they were a pretext for Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, to drive up the price of natural gas in Europe. Gas prices have jumped 70 percent this week, reaching more than 140 euros a megawatt-hour on the TTF exchange Thursday.
The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global Economy
A far-reaching conflict. Russia’s invasion on Ukraine has had a ripple effect across the globe, adding to the stock market’s woes. The conflict has caused dizzying spikes in gas prices and product shortages, and has pushed Europe to reconsider its reliance on Russian energy sources.
“Yesterday we received notice that further amounts of gas were being reduced,” Mr. Habeck told Germans in the Instagram video, which had been viewed more than 141,000 times by midday Thursday. “That confirms what we have feared from the start: Putin is reducing the amount of gas. Not all in one go, but step by step.”
He pointed out similar behavior by Russia in recent months, pointing to Gazprom cutting off gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria and Denmark.
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