The writer is Fritz Stern Chair at the Brookings Institution
“We just don’t know. Everything is possible.” This was German economics minister Robert Habeck’s succinct response to the question currently consuming his country’s government, industry and public: when the 10-day scheduled maintenance to the Nord Stream 1 pipeline ends on July 21, will the Russian state-controlled gas exporter Gazprom resume deliveries? Or will Vladimir Putin perform a gasectomy on Germany?
A graph in the Federal Network Agency’s latest supply status report shows how much gas is currently flowing in at three connector points for Russian gas on Germany’s eastern border: none. “The situation,” says the agency, “is tense and a worsening of the situation cannot be ruled out.”