German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said that Germany is doing all it can to wean itself off Russian energy, but declined to endorse a claim by Boris Johnson that it would stop importing Russian gas by the middle of 2024.
Scholz said only that the goal would be achieved very soon, and that Germany would stop using Russian coal by the summer and Russian oil by the end of the year.
The two leaders were speaking at a Downing Street press conference after the first extensive bilateral talks since Scholz was elected to head a coalition government.
Scholz also implied Germany would not supply Ukraine with 100 Marder tanks, saying he would only supply weapons that were practical and useful. A Ukrainian request for the tanks has been held up by the German defense department, leading to tensions between the Ukrainians and Germans.
Johnson, one of the closest allies of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, struck a different tone than Scholz about the value of holding talks with Vladimir Putin, after Polish criticism of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, for persisting with his dialogue with the Russian leader.
Johnson said: \u201cI have got to say, negotiating with Putin does not seem to be full of promise or that he can be trusted.\u201d He said he was \u201cdeeply, deeply sceptical and cynical about Putin\u2019s assurances\u201d and that \u201cthe Europe we knew just six weeks ago no longer exists\u201d.
Scholz said the criticism of Macron was unjustified and that it was important Putin heard voices other than from his inner circle. Throughout the press conference, Scholz was challenged to explain why Germany was not willing to go faster to reduce the scale of Russian energy imports, given the \u20ac35bn (\u00a329bn) in revenue from the EU it has generated for Russia since the war started.
He insisted it would take time to remove the legal obstacle to build the necessary liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals on Germany\u2019s northern coast that would be able to store imported LNG from countries such as Qatar and the US.
He said: \u201cWe are actively working to get independent from the import of oil and we think that we will be able to make it during this year. And we are actively working to get independent from the necessity of importing gas from Russia. This is, as you may imagine, not that easy, because it needs infrastructure to be built.\u201d
Johnson voiced sympathy over the German predicament. \u201cThis is not easy for any of us and I applaud the seismic decisions taken by Olaf\u2019s government to move Germany away from Russian hydrocarbons. We cannot transform our respective energy systems overnight, but we also know that Putin\u2019s war will not end overnight\u201d.
However, he then added: \u201cI think by the middle of 2024, as I recall, Germany\u2019s going to stop using Russian gas, which is quite extraordinary.\u201d
Asked if he agreed with Johnson\u2019s timetable, Scholz simply said: \u201cWe are optimistic that we will get rid of the need of importing gas from Russia very soon.\u201d
Scholz stressed that the change in Germany\u2019s energy supplies would be permanent, something he said would cause long-term damage to the Russian economy. He said Germany would be using renewables for all its electricity within 20 years.
On arming Ukraine, Johnson signaled a change in strategy. \u201cSome of the kit that NATO has simply wouldn\u2019t be appropriate. It may be more useful to support them, the Ukrainians, by backfilling and allowing some of the former Warsaw Pact countries to supply some of their own armour,\u201d he said.
Asked if Germany was willing to send Marder tanks, Scholz said: \u201cWe are trying to send those weapons that are helpful and can be used. The successes by the Ukrainian military show that we sent effective weapons \u2013 anti-tank weapons, a lot of ammunition and everything that goes with it. At the same time \u2026 we have to take a close look at what can be used effectively, and these are very technical questions.\u201d
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said that Germany is doing all it can to wean itself off Russian energy, but declined to endorse a claim by Boris Johnson that it would stop importing Russian gas by the middle of 2024.Scholz said only that the goal would be achieved very soon, and that Germany would stop using …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":52108,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,36],"tags":[7514,7666,9310,8432,6951,7725,9059,7534,6835,8110,8793],"class_list":["post-63596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-commodities-news","category-market-updates","tag-boris-johnson","tag-energy-prices","tag-military-aids","tag-nato","tag-natural-gas","tag-olaf-scholz","tag-russian-energy","tag-sanctions","tag-uk","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63596"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63600,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63596\/revisions\/63600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noortrends.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}