A German economist Jens Ehrhardt confirmed that Berlin will incur €1 trillion in the cost of replacing Russian pipeline gas with an expansion of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which requires the construction of a special infrastructure for that.
The economist said in an interview published by the newspaper “Handelsblatt”: “My view in the political struggle with Russia, is that in Germany and Europe we do ourselves a lot of harm by imposing sanctions on Russia.”
“Germany, which lacks innovation, relies heavily on traditional industries such as the automobile industry,” Ehrhardt added.
He continued, “In the next four years, we will not be able to replace cheap Russian gas at all, and expanding the capacity to receive liquefied gas, it will cost us one trillion euros, according to some estimates.”
He pointed out that “the so-called green revolution will lead to higher production costs … and industries in Germany will become more expensive and therefore less competitive.”
He expressed his confidence that “the volume of German exports, which has increased by 50% since the adoption of the euro, will now begin to decline, and this will hurt our high export share more than other countries… We in Germany will go through very difficult times.”
The German expert criticized the US Federal Reserve’s measures aimed at combating inflation.
“I think the US Fed is making a big mistake right now, and it’s probably the biggest mistake since World War II,” he said.
He expected a repeat of the collapse of the German stock index Dax, which fell by about 12,500 points last March.
