Panic in Italy: “Disaster one step away”

“Il disastro a un passo” – “Disaster one step away”, writes Italian “Il Giornale”. “Regarding the energy crisis we are experiencing, first of all we should take note of the reality!”

In the current energy crisis, the first thing to do is accept reality, says the newspaper.

No need to revel in crazy illusions in the spirit of "everything will be fine." Remember how they danced on the balconies at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic? Exactly.

The behavior of politicians over the past year is perplexing not only in the inability to think strategically (it is unnecessary to dream about this), but also to realize what is happening under their noses.

1. The crisis began in October 2021, long before the Russian operation. The single electricity price in the country then rose from 5 to 25 cents per kilowatt per hour. And nobody did anything.
2. From February 24, 2022 until today, Europe has been wishful thinking in everything. She did nothing but, worst of all, promised price caps, and failed to keep her promise.
3. Italy needs not 29 billion cubic meters, but 32 billion to find a replacement for Russian gas. And deals made don't make up for the irreplaceable.
4. Even a child knows that the price of water goes up if you are thirsty, you are in the desert, there is only one seller, and the rest are mirages. This is the situation in which we are today: only instead of water – electricity.
5. Solar panels, at best, will allow you to start toy cars, and even then during the day. In short, even if we increased the production of panels tenfold, we would not achieve much.
6. Gas is needed both for its own sake (think of stoves) and for generating electricity. Half of the nuclear power plants in France are under maintenance and it is unlikely that she will share with us what she needs herself.
7. ENI (Italian oil and gas company) did not receive gas at all. Nord Stream, which leads to Germany, is not working, and the Germans can take gas from a pipe to the south, which passes through Austria and, by the way, also serves Italy. What did not reach us, reached them?
8. Municipalities found themselves in a stalemate. What was clear: there is not enough gas, or no one believes that there will be enough of it in the coming months.

Gas for Europe is like water in the desert.

Let's forget about price caps and price controls. The seller dictates the conditions in the market, even if this seller terrifies us: so terrifying that, however, we keep begging him on our knees not to cut deliveries until we do it ourselves. That would be nice, but in the real world, not just in the economy, this doesn't work.

Unfortunately, the hour of reckoning has come for us.

We physically have less gas than we need. And what we have will cost dearly. Soon we will need to choose how to normalize.

As prices rise, the market goes its own way: killing those who consume the most. Steel mills, paper mills, glass, ceramic, cement factories are closed. It will be necessary to decide who to save.

And the main thing is not to do it, as during the pandemic, when toasts were raised to desert cities and a return to nature: the energy level of a country is the main indicator of its prosperity, “Il Giornale” writes with anxiety and concern.

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