RuudVanNistelrooy
i'm far from the star
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- Dec 5, 2021
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They already announced significant power outages.
Germany is bleeding cash to keep the lights on. Almost half a trillion dollars, and counting, since the Ukraine war jolted it into an energy crisis nine months ago.
That's the cumulative scale of the bailouts and schemes the Berlin government has launched to prop up the country's energy system since prices rocketed and it lost access to gas from main supplier Russia, according to Reuters calculations.
And it may not be enough.
That equates to about 1.5 billion euros a day since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Or around 12% of national economic output. Or about 5,400 euros for each person in Germany.
Europe's preeminent economy, long a byword for prudent planning, now finds itself at the mercy of the weather. Energy rationing is a risk in the event of a long cold spell this winter, Germany's first in half a century without Russian gas.
The 440 billion euros earmarked to fight the energy crisis is already near the roughly 480 billion euros that the IW says Germany has spent since 2020 to protect its economy from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.