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Tag Archives: Europes
Europe’s warm winter is robbing Putin of a trump card
London
CNN
—
Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine, one question has troubled European governments more than almost any other: What happens if Moscow turns off the gas?
The threat of cutting Russian gas supplies for European countries, many of whom have relied on it for years to heat their homes and power their factories, was a trump card that Putin could play if the war he started last February dragged into a long winter.
Citizens from countries who were not directly at war with Russia might wonder, as the cold started to bite, why their comfort and livelihoods were being sacrificed on behalf of Ukraine. National leaders, feeling domestic pressure, might agitate for sanctions to be softened or for peace to be brokered on terms favorable to Moscow, it was thought.
“There’s a traditional view in Russia that one of its best assets in warfare is general winter,” explains Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at think tank Chatham House.
“In this case, Russia sought to exploit winter to augment the power of another tool in its box: the energy weapon. Russia was counting on a winter freeze to bring Europe to its senses and convince publics across the continent that support for Ukraine was not worth the pain in their wallets,” Giles adds.
But that long chill has yet to pass. Western and Central Europe have enjoyed a milder winter than expected, which, along with a coordinated drive to reduce gas consumption, has taken one of Putin’s largest bargaining chips out of his hands.
As we head further into 2023, European governments now have a window of opportunity to get their ducks in a row and reduce reliance on Russian gas before another winter comes around. Doing so could play a crucial role in maintaining the West’s united front as the war drags on.
So, how long is this window and what short-term measures can be taken to make the most of it?
Adam Bell, a former UK government energy official, says that the warm winter has effectively “bought Europe a year. A colder December and January would have eaten through a lot of Europe’s gas stockpiles, which could have led to a physical shortage of molecules.”
He warns, however, that simply stockpiling gas isn’t enough. “More work needs to be done in efficiency. Homes and businesses need buildings that waste less energy through insulation. Companies need to switch manufacturing processes away from natural gas.”
Critics accuse European governments of focusing too much on controlling the immediate price of gas, rather than investing in longer-term measures like efficiency and renewables.
“There is an understandable political instinct to alleviate the price because it directly addresses the cost concerns of households and businesses. But making gas cheaper removes the incentive to reduce overall consumption,” says Milan Elkerbout, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies.
“Politicians tend to think of energy efficiency as a long-term project. Partly this is because of shortages in materials such as insulation and a shortage of skilled workers. But even small efficiency measures taken in the short term can contribute to a big overall change in consumption,” Elkerbout adds.
In the medium term, Europe now has an opportunity to implement some of the changes to its energy consumption habits that have proven politically difficult. Objection to renewable sources such as onshore wind farms and criticisms of the price of net-zero policies have been cast in a new light, now that the real costs and instability that come with imported gas are more obvious.
“Governments could do more to incentivize and speed up the development of renewable sources of energy,” says John Springford, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform. “A big step would be giving the green light to onshore wind. It would also be wise for governments to build storage capacity for liquid natural gas (LNG), which can happen fairly quickly and directly reduces the need for Russian gas.”
Whether or not European countries will take advantage of this brief chance to bolster their energy security is another matter entirely.
“Europe’s vulnerability that was suddenly exposed existed because of a longstanding complacency by Western powers,” says Giles.
“Western Europe had not been willing to listen to the frontline states who warned over the Russian regime’s intent and understood that more expensive energy was a price worth paying in exchange for not being vulnerable to Russian pressure. This complacency left Russia with multiple open goals to kick at in major Western European capitals, most notably Germany,” he adds.
As absurd as it sounds while bombs continue to fall on Ukraine, a return to the old complacency and a failure to shore up Europe’s energy independence is not out of the question.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in December that global demand for coal – the most polluting of all fossil fuels – reached a record high in 2022 amid the energy crisis caused by Russia’s war. Just a year after after countries agreed to phase down their use of coal at the United Nations’ climate conference in Glasgow, Europe found itself switching some of its recently closed coal power plants back on.
The IEA said that while the increase in coal consumption was relatively modest in most European countries, Germany saw a reversal of a “significant scale.”
European nations have historically been reluctant to merge their energy policy and markets. The reasons for this range from naked self-interest (why should one country benefit from another’s stockpiling?) to controlling markets (for example, why should cheaper LNG from Spain undercut French nuclear power?)
And even if the political appetite did emerge for some kind of common energy policy and market, it would be extremely difficult to manage centrally as individual nations would inevitably compete for resources and financial subsidies.
That is what makes this current window so important. While the active fighting continues, it is vital it serves as a reminder that failure to act now could mean sleepwalking into a disaster next winter. And a self-inflicted energy crisis would return the power to Putin that was denied to him through sheer luck, and some unseasonably warm weather.
Western Europe’s first satellite launch mission takes off
NEWQUAY, England, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Virgin Orbit’s “Cosmic Girl” carrier aircraft took off from Newquay’s spaceport in Cornwall, southwest England on Monday night, the initial stage of Western Europe’s first ever satellite launch.
The modified Boeing 747 with a rocket under its wing took to the air and then soared out over the Atlantic Ocean, where after an hour it will release a rocket at about 35,000 feet (10,668 meters).
More than 2,000 space fans cheered when the aircraft left the runway.
The “horizontal” launch has catapulted the resort in southwest England – population 20,000 and famous for its reliable Atlantic waves – into the limelight as Western Europe’s go-to destination for small satellites.
Virgin Orbit (VORB.O), part-owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, said nine satellites would be deployed into lower Earth orbit (LEO) from its LauncherOne rocket in its first mission outside its United States base.
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Additional reporting by Sarah Young; editing by Nick Macfie and Sandra Maler, Kate Holton
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Two Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging satellites lost in failure of Europe’s Vega C rocket – Spaceflight Now
The final two spacecraft in Airbus’s four-satellite, 600 million-euro commercial Pléiades Neo Earth observation fleet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after launch from French Guiana Tuesday night, falling victim to a failure of a European Vega C rocket.
The Vega C rocket’s launch operator, Arianespace, confirmed the mission failed to place the two Pléiades Neo optical imaging satellites into orbit. The preliminary focus of the failure investigation centered on the Vega C rocket’s second stage.
The 114-foot-tall (34.8-meter) rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center at 8:47:31 p.m. EST Tuesday (0147:31 GMT Wednesday) with the Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 Earth-imaging satellites for Airbus Defense and Space. The target was a polar sun-synchronous orbit.
The Vega C’s powerful solid-fueled P120C first stage booster burned nearly two-and-a-half minutes, producing a million pounds of thrust to accelerate the rocket into the upper atmosphere. Heading north from the South American coastline, the rocket shed its spent first stage motor casing and fired a second stage Zefiro 40 motor to continue the climb into space.
Liftoff of Europe’s Vega C rocket on its first operational mission from the Guiana Space Center, carrying two sharp-eyed Pléiades Neo optical Earth-imaging satellites into polar orbit for Airbus. https://t.co/rUACF3jhhj pic.twitter.com/X1NZwlb8mh
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) December 21, 2022
But Arianespace said in a press release that the rocket ran into trouble about 2 minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff, near the start of the Zefiro 40 motor firing.
“After the liftoff and the nominal ignition of P120C, which is the first stage of the Vega, an underpressure has been observed on the Zefiro 40, which is the second stage of the Vega,” said Stéphane Israël, Arianespace’s CEO. “And after this underpressure, we have observed a deviation of the trajectory and a very strong anomaly. Unfortunately, we can say that the mission is lost.”
Telemetry from the rocket showed the vehicle losing velocity about three-and-a-half minutes into the flight, when the Zefiro 40 motor should have been propelling the Vega C to faster speeds. The rocket appeared to reach a peak altitude of about 360,000 feet, or 110 kilometers. Tracking data indicated the rocket re-entered the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean, with the final measurement showing the Vega C about 570 miles (917 kilometers) north of the spaceport before it likely disintegrated from heating and aerodynamic forces.
“I want to deeply apologize to our customer, Pléiades Neo and Airbus Defense and Space, for this failure tonight,” Israël said. “And we will now have to work with all our partners to better understand why the Zefiro 40 has not worked properly tonight, triggering the failure of the mission.”
The Zefiro 40 second stage, like the Vega C’s other solid-fueled booster stages, is produced by the rocket’s prime contractor, the Italian aerospace company Avio. The second stage motor is designed to burn its supply of 40 tons (36 metric tons) of pre-packed solid propellant in about 90 seconds.
The launch Tuesday night was the first commercial flight of Europe’s upgraded Vega C rocket, following the Vega C’s flawless inaugural test flight July 13.
The Vega C rocket replaces the old Vega rocket’s solid-fueled first and second stages with wider, heavier motor casings. The third stage motor is unchanged, and the restartable liquid-fueled fourth stage has the same type of engine but carries more propellant. The upgraded Vega C is taller than the original Vega rocket configuration, and has a larger payload fairing provided by the Swiss company Beyond Gravity, formerly known as RUAG Space.
The wider Zefiro 40 second stage on the Vega C rocket replaces the Zefiro 23 motor on the basic model of the Vega rocket, adding 50% more solid propellant and generating 293,000 pounds of thrust.
Here’s the statement from Stéphane Israël, Arianespace’s CEO, confirming an “underpressure” was detected on the Vega C rocket’s second stage Zefiro 40 motor, causing the failure of tonight’s launch with Airbus’s Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 satellites. https://t.co/rUACF3jhhj pic.twitter.com/9gGdpJs9OV
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) December 21, 2022
Europe’s Vega rocket family has now suffered three failures in 22 flights. The three failures have occurred on the Vega rocket’s last eight launches, following 14 straight successful flights since the Vega launcher entered service in 2012.
Investigators blamed a 2019 launch mishap on a “thermo-structural failure” on the Vega rocket’s Zefiro 23 second stage. A 2020 launch failure was traced to misplaced cables on the Vega rocket’s liquid-fueled upper stage, called the Attitude and Vernier Upper Module.
The Vega rocket had amassed four straight successful launches, including the debut of the Vega C, before Tuesday night’s doomed mission.
The satellites lost on the Vega C rocket were the third and fourth spacecraft in a quartet of Airbus-built and -owned Earth observation satellites. The first two Pléiades Neo satellites launched in 2021 on separate Vega rockets, but Airbus put the third and fourth spacecraft of the constellation on the same mission to take advantage of the Vega C rocket’s heavier carrying capacity.
ESA-Manuel Pedoussaut
The Pléiades Neo satellites feature improvements over Airbus’s two first-generation Pléiades Earth observation satellites launched in 2011 and 2012. Airbus says it entirely funded the development of the Pléiades Neo satellites, with intentions to sell the imagery commercially to private companies and government users. The company announced the Pléiades Neo program in 2016, and Airbus assembled the Pléiades Neo spacecraft at its facility in Toulouse, France.
The four-satellite program was expected to cost Airbus about 600 million euros, or roughly $700 million.
The Pléiades Neo satellites can produce optical imagery of Earth’s surface with a resolution of 11.8 inches, or 30 centimeters, according to Airbus. That’s good enough to resolve features such as vehicles and road markings. The first two Pléiades satellites launched more than a decade ago have 19.6-inch, or 50-centimeter, resolution.
Airbus has released imagery from the first two Pléiades Neo satellites showcasing their capabilities, picturing lava flows from volcanic eruptions, large-scale music and sports events, and views of aircraft and rockets at airports and spaceports.
The imaging resolution of Airbus’s four Pléiades Neo satellites is comparable to the resolution provided by Maxar’s six-satellite WorldView Legion surveillance satellites due to begin launching next year. The companies are competitors, providing the highest-resolution Earth observation imagery on the global commercial market.
With the help of laser inter-satellite communications links, the Pléiades Neo satellites will be able to respond rapidly to tasking requests within a half-hour, according to Airbus.
A single Pléiades Neo satellite, using a new agile pointing capability enabled by control moment gyroscopes, can turn side-to-side to observe the same location every two days. Once all four satellites are in orbit, the constellation will be able to image any location on Earth twice a day.
Each Pléiades Neo spacecraft is designed to operate for at least 10 years. One Pléiades Neo satellite can collect images covering an area of nearly 200,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) every day, Airbus says.
The applications for Pléiades Neo imagery include urban planning and city management, climate change assessments, and determining the impacts of pollution. The satellites can also be tasked to assess the damage from natural disasters, and the imagery also has military applications.
The Vega C rocket aimed to deploy the Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 satellites into a polar, or north-south, orbit about 385 miles (620 kilometers) above Earth.
Europe’s Vega rocket family is designed to carry small to medium-size satellites into orbit. Developed in partnership between Avio and the European Space Agency, the upgraded Vega C rocket is capable of hauling up to 5,070 pounds (2.3 metric tons) of payload mass to a 435-mile-high (700-kilometer) polar orbit, an increase over the 3,300-pound (1.5-metric ton) capacity of the basic model of the Vega rocket.
ESA and the European Commission reached an agreement with Arianespace last month to launch five satellites for Europe’s Copernicus Earth observing system on Vega C rockets. The new deal increased Arianespace’s backlog to 15 Vega missions, including 13 Vega C missions and two more launches with the original Vega rocket configuration.
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Europe’s Vega C rocket fails on 2nd mission, 2 satellites lost
The second mission of Europe’s new Vega C rocket did not go according to plan.
The medium-lift Vega C lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Tuesday (Dec. 20) at 8:47 p.m. EST (10:47 p.m. local time; 0147 GMT on Dec. 21), carrying two satellites for Airbus’ Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging constellation.
The rocket’s first stage, known as the P120C, did its job. But the second stage, called the Zefiro 40, did not.
“Approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff an anomaly occurred on the Zefiro 40, thus ending the Vega C mission,” representatives of Arianespace, the French company that operates the Vega C, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday night. “Data analyses are in progress to determine the reasons of this failure.”
Related: The history of rockets
The Vega C was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is operated by Arianespace.
The 115-foot-tall (35 meters), four-stage rocket is a more powerful version of the Vega, which first flew in 2012. The Vega C can haul about 5,070 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of payload to a 435-mile-high (700 kilometers) sun-synchronous orbit, compared to 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) for the older rocket, according to Arianespace (opens in new tab).
The two spacecraft that were lost due to Tuesday’s failure, Pléiades Neo 5 and Pléiades Neo 6, together weighed 4,359 pounds (1,977 kg). The duo were headed to sun-synchronous orbit, where they would have completed Airbus’ Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging constellation.
“The constellation is made of four identical satellites, built using the latest Airbus innovations and technological developments, and allows to image any point of the globe, several times per day, at 30-centimeter [12 inches] resolution,” Arianespace wrote in a mission description of the Vega C (opens in new tab).
“Highly agile and reactive, they can be tasked up to 15 minutes before acquisition and send the images back to Earth within the following hour,” Arianespace added. “Smaller, lighter, more agile, accurate and reactive than the competition, they are the first of their class whose capacity will be fully commercially available.”
The Vega C had one flight under its belt before Tuesday. In July 2022, the rocket successfully lofted LARES-2, a 650-pound (295 kg) satellite developed by the Italian Space Agency, as well as six ride-along cubesats.
Tuesday’s mission was originally supposed to lift off on Nov. 24. But Arianespace delayed it nearly a month to replace faulty equipment on the rocket, a process that required opening the Vega C’s payload fairing (opens in new tab) at a processing facility in Kourou.
Further analyses will presumably attempt to determine if the faulty equipment had anything to do with the launch failure. We should learn more on Wednesday (Dec. 21); Arianespace plans to hold a media teleconference at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT).
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
Croatia joins Europe’s free-travel zone, Romania and Bulgaria barred
BRUSSELS/BREGANA BORDER CROSSING BETWEEN CROATIA AND SLOVENIA, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Croatia got the green light on Thursday to join Europe’s open travel zone, but Bulgaria and Romania were kept out because of opposition led by Austria over concerns about unauthorised immigration.
From 2023, people will not have to stop for border checks as they pass between Croatia and the rest of the so-called Schengen area – the world’s largest free-travel area seen as one of the main achievements of European integration.
It will “shorten the journey and the wait, thank God,” driver Nenad Benic said as he queued to cross the Bregana border point from Croatia into Slovenia on Thursday.
Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said he was disappointed and would apply to enter the zone again. “We regret and honestly do not understand the inflexible position taken by Austria,” he said.
Bulgaria would also try again, its foreign minister said.
Croatia got the go-ahead to become the zone’s 27th member after tense talks between the bloc’s interior ministers in Brussels.
“To the citizens of Croatia: welcome, congratulations!,” European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, said.
“To the citizens of Romania and Bulgaria – you deserve to be full members of Schengen, to have access to the free movement… I share the disappointment with the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania.”
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said he had opposed Romania and Bulgaria because of security concerns.
“It is wrong that a system that does not work properly in many places would get expanded at this point,” he said.
Austria, he added, had recorded 100,000 illegal border crossings so far this year, including 75,000 people who had not been previously registered in other Schengen countries as they should have been.
Accession needs unanimous backing from all members – 22 EU nations as well as Lichtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
The Netherlands also opposed granting access to Bulgaria, citing concerns over corruption and migration.
Immigration has been a hot button issue in Europe since 2015 when more than a million people arrived across the Mediterranean Sea, mostly on smugglers’ boats, prompting the EU to tighten its borders and asylum laws.
U.N. data shows some 145,000 people have made the sea crossing this year while more than 1,800 perished trying to reach Europe’s shores, numbers way lower than in 2015.
But the EU’s border police Frontex said last month that 281,000 irregular entries had been recorded throughout the bloc in the first 10 months of 2022, up 77% from a year before and the highest since 2016.
With the Western Balkans route currently the most active, and the EU welcoming several million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war, worries about immigration have returned to the fore.
Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, additional reporting by Bart Meijer and Clement Rossignol, Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Crispian Balmer and Andrew Heavens
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Europe’s debt market strains force some governments to rework trading rules
Oct 31 (Reuters) – Some euro zone countries have eased rules for the banks that manage the trading of their government debt to help them cope with some of the most challenging market conditions in years, officials told Reuters.
Out of 11 major euro area debt agencies Reuters contacted, officials in the Netherlands and Belgium told Reuters they have loosened various market-making obligations dictating how actively these banks should trade their debt.
France, Spain and Finland said their rules are already structured to automatically take account of market tensions. Germany and Austria said they do not set such rules.
As the European Central Bank unwinds years of buying the region’s debt, while the war in Ukraine, an energy shock and turmoil in Britain are making investors wary of loading up on government bonds, debt managers are adjusting to a less liquid, more volatile market.
That in turn, could raise borrowing costs for governments, already squeezed by climbing interest rates and energy-related spending, and bring more uncertainty for institutions, such as pension funds, which seek in government debt safety and stability.
Euro zone government debt bid-ask spreads, the difference between what buyers are offering and sellers are willing to accept and a measure of how smooth the trading is, have risen up to four-fold since the summer of 2021, data compiled by MarketAxess (MKTX.O) for Reuters showed. The data tracked German, Italian, French, Spanish and Dutch bonds, markets which account for the vast majority of euro zone debt with nearly 8 trillion euros outstanding.
LOOSENED OBLIGATIONS
Wider spreads mean more volatility and higher transaction costs. So governments expect, and some formally require their primary dealers – banks that buy government debt at auctions and then sell to investors and manage its trading – to keep those tight.
In markets with formal requirements, they also face other “quoting obligations” to ensure the best possible liquidity. Those obligations have been loosened in some countries to account for heightened market stress.
Jaap Teerhuis, head of dealing room at the Dutch State Treasury, said several of its quoting obligations, including bid-ask spreads, had been loosened.
“Volatility is still significantly higher compared to before the (Ukraine) war and also ECB uncertainty has also led to more volatility and more volatility makes it harder for primary dealers to comply,” he said.
Liquidity has been declining since late 2021 as traders started anticipating ECB rate hikes, Teerhuis said. The Netherlands then loosened its quoting obligations following the invasion of Ukraine.
Belgium’s quoting obligations also move with changes in trading conditions. But it has relaxed since March the rules on how many times per month dealers are allowed to fail to comply with them and has also reduced how much dealers are required to quote on trading platforms, its debt agency chief Maric Post said.
The two countries also loosened rules during the COVID-19 pandemic. Belgium’s Post said that lasted only four months in 2020, but it has kept obligations looser for much longer this time.
Finland said it has not changed its rules, but could not rule out acting if conditions persist or worsen.
Outside the bloc, Norway has also allowed dealers to set wider bid-ask spreads.
In Italy, debt management chief Davide Iacovoni said on Tuesday it was considering adjusting the way it ranks primary dealers each year to encourage them to quote tight spreads. Such rankings can affect which banks get to take part in lucrative syndicated debt sales.
Debt offices where obligations adapt automatically said attempts to enforce pre-determined bid-ask spreads in volatile markets would discourage primary dealers from providing liquidity and cause more volatility.
“If the market is too volatile, if it’s too risky, if it’s too costly, it’s better to adjust the bid-offer to what is the reality of the market than to force liquidity,” France’s debt chief Cyril Rousseau told an event on Tuesday.
Britain’s September sell-off highlighted how liquidity can evaporate fast in markets that are already volatile when a shock hits. In that case, the government’s big spending plans triggered large moves in debt prices, forcing pension funds to resort to fire sales of assets to meet collateral calls.
‘FRAGMENTED MARKET’
Allianz senior economist Patrick Krizan said with bond volatility nearing 2008 levels, a fragmented market for safe assets was a concern.
The euro zone is roughly 60% the size of the U.S. economy but it relies on Germany’s 1.6 trillion euro bond market as a safe haven – a fraction of the $23-trillion U.S. Treasury market.
In the case of a volatility shock “you can very easily fall into a situation where some markets are really drying up,” Krizan said. “For us it’s one of the biggest risks for the euro area.”
For example, the Netherlands like Germany has a top, triple A rating. But like other smaller euro zone markets it does not offer futures, a key hedging instrument, and so far this year the premium it pays over German debt has doubled to around 30 basis points.
Efforts by debt officials are welcomed by European primary dealers, whose numbers have dwindled in recent years because of shrinking profit margins and tougher regulation.
Two officials at primary dealer banks said that fulfilling the quoting obligations in current conditions would force them to take on more risk.
“If (issuers) want private sector market-making, it needs to be profitable, or why would anyone do it? And it can’t be if rates move around 10-15 basis points a day,” one said of moves of a scale that had rarely been seen in these markets in recent years.
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Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli and Dhara Ranasinghe; additional reporting by Belen Carreno in MADRID, Lefteris Papadimas in ATHENS and Padraic Halpin in DUBLIN; editing by Tomasz Janowski
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Europe’s new club meets without Russia
PRAGUE, Oct 6 (Reuters) – The European Union and its neighbours from Britain to Turkey met on Thursday to discuss shared security and energy problems stemming from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in a rare and symbolic summit of 44 European countries – but not Russia.
The Prague gathering is the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC), a format that is a brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron and brings together the 27 European Union members with 17 other European countries.
Some of them are waiting to join the bloc while another, Britain, is the only one ever to leave it.
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“All those who are gathered here know: Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a brutal violation of the peace and security order that we had over the last decades in Europe,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“We don’t accept that part of a neighbouring country is annexed.”
His comments were echoed by Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, as well as the top EU diplomat, Josep Borrell.
“This meeting is a way of looking for a new order without Russia. It doesn’t mean we want to exclude Russia forever, but this Russia, (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia, does not have a seat,” said Borrell.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss, after meeting the summit’s host, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, stressed their “strong agreement on the importance of likeminded European democracies presenting a united front against Putin’s brutality”.
Her decision to attend the summit left some hoping for a warmer tone between the EU and London after Brexit, where the two are still in disagreement over trade issues around Northern Ireland.
The gathering at the sprawling Prague Castle is seen by its advocates as a grand show of solidarity for a continent mired in multiple crises from the security fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine to dire economic consequences including an acute energy crunch.
Macron said his priority was to build more electricity connections in Europe, and lower gas prices.
“We share a same space. Very often, the same history. And we are meant to write our future together,” he said. “I hope we will be able to get common projects.”
NO DECISIONS
Beyond lofty declarations, there were doubts about the forum’s concrete goals and actions.
Latvia’s Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins said no decisions were expected at the symbolic gathering the EU had pitched as only an “initial exchange” of thoughts.
“The primary goal is that we all come together because Russian war in Ukraine is affecting all of us in the security sense and also through our economies, through the rising energy costs. The only way to handle this is working together,” he said.
Some dismissed the EPC swiftly as just another talking shop, one that will be difficult to manage not just because of its size but also because of its diversity and the traditional rivalries between many of its members, from Armenia and Azerbaijan to Greece and Turkey.
The 27 EU countries will go on to meet on their own on Friday, with tensions playing out over Germany’s 200 billion euro ($197.50 billion) energy support package that many of its peers see as damaging competition on the bloc’s single market.
In their meeting, EU countries will look at their differences about how to cap gas prices to contain soaring energy costs that are harming the post-COVID economic recovery.
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Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Michel Rose, Robert Muller, Jan Lopatka, Michel Kahn, Jason Hovet, Andreas Rinke in Prague, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Writing by John Chalmers and Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Josie Kao, Frank Jack Daniel and Frances Kerry
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Russia deepens Europe’s energy squeeze with new gas halt
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FRANKFURT/LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Russia halted gas supplies via Europe’s key supply route on Wednesday, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospects of recession and energy rationing in some of the region’s richest countries.
European governments fear Moscow could extend the outage in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed after it invaded Ukraine and have accused Russia of using energy supplies as a “weapon of war”. Moscow denies doing this and has cited technical reasons for supply cuts.
Russian state energy giant Gazprom (GAZP.MM) said Nord Stream 1, the biggest pipeline carrying gas to its top customer Germany, will be out for maintenance from 0100 GMT on Aug. 31 to 0100 GMT on Sept. 3. read more
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The president of the German network regulator said that Germany would be able to cope with the three-day outage as long as flows resumed on Saturday.
“I assume that we will be able to cope with it,” Klaus Mueller told Reuters TV in an interview. “I trust that Russia will return to at least 20% from Saturday, but no one can really say.”
Further restrictions to European gas supplies would deepen an energy crunch that has already triggered a 400% surge in wholesale gas prices since last August, squeezing consumers and businesses and forcing governments to spend billions to ease the burden. read more
In Germany, inflation soared to its highest in almost 50 years in August and consumer sentiment soured as households brace for a spike in energy bills. read more
LOWER SUPPLIES
Unlike last month’s 10-day maintenance for Nord Stream 1, the latest work was announced less than two weeks in advance and is being carried out by Gazprom rather than its operator.
Moscow, which slashed supply via the pipeline to 40% of capacity in June and to 20% in July, blames maintenance issues and sanctions it says prevent the return and installation of equipment.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia remained committed to its gas supply obligations, but was unable to fulfil them due to the sanctions, according to the Interfax news agency.
Gazprom said the latest shutdown was needed to perform maintenance on the pipeline’s only remaining compressor at the Portovaya station in Russia, saying the work would be carried out jointly with Siemens specialists.
Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE), which has carried out maintenance work on compressors and turbines at the station in the past, said on Wednesday it was not involved in the maintenance but stood ready to advise Gazprom if needed. read more
Russia has also stopped supplying Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, and reduced flows via other pipelines since launching what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine. read more
Gazprom said on Tuesday it would also suspend gas deliveries to its French contractor because of a payments dispute, which France’s energy minister called an excuse, but added that the country had anticipated the loss of supply. read more
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, on a mission to replace Russian gas imports by mid-2024, earlier this month said Nord Stream 1 was “fully operational” and there were no technical issues as claimed by Moscow.
‘ELEMENT OF SURPRISE’
The reduced flows via Nord Stream have complicated efforts across Europe to save enough gas to make it through the winter months, when governments fear Russia may halt flows altogether.
“It is something of a miracle that gas filling levels in Germany have continued to rise nonetheless,” Commerzbank analysts wrote, noting the country has so far managed to buy enough at higher prices elsewhere.
In the meantime, some Europeans are voluntarily cutting their energy consumption, including limiting their use of electrical appliances and showering at work to save money while companies are bracing for possible rationing. read more
With storage tanks filled in 83.65%, Germany is already close to its 85% target set for Oct. 1, but it has warned reaching 95% by Nov. 1 would be a stretch unless companies and households slash consumption.
European Union as a whole reached 80.17% of its storage capacity, already ahead of the 80% target set for Oct. 1, when the continent’s heating season starts.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs said their base scenario was that the latest Nord Stream 1 outage would not be extended.
“If it did, there would be no more element of surprise and reduced revenues, while low flows and the occasional drop to zero have the potential to keep market volatility and political pressure on Europe higher,” they said.
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Reporting Nina Chestney and Christoph Steitz; Additional reporting by Matthias Inverardi, Bharat Govind Gautam and Eileen Soreng; Editing by Veronica Brown, Carmel Crimmins, Lincoln Feast and Tomasz Janowski
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Fossils in Portuguese Backyard May Be Europe’s Largest Dinosaur
In 2017, a property owner in Pombal, Portugal, spotted some fossilized bones emerging from the dirt in his backyard. Earlier this month, a team of paleontologists studying the remains announced that they could belong to the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe.
The bones—vertebrae and some ribs, specifically—belonged to a sauropod that roamed what is now Portugal between 160 million and 100 million years ago. Sauropods are the group of large, herbivorous dinosaurs that include Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, and the massive Patagotitan. The group walked on all fours, and are most identifiable by their tremendous size and elongated necks.
“It is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining their original anatomical position,” said Elisabete Malafaia, a paleontologist at the University of Lisbon, in a university release. “This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, in particular sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.”
The Portuguese and Spanish team excavating the backyard bones estimate the animal they belonged to was about 40 feet tall and 82 feet long. It doesn’t rival the largest sauropods (several of which are from Argentina) in terms of size, but it still could be the largest-yet-known European dinosaur.
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Last month, fossilized fragments of an animal believed to be the largest-known carnivorous dinosaur from Europe were discovered on the Isle of Wight, a landmass off the southern coast of England.
Excavations are still underway in the backyard. Based on the preservation of the ribs and vertebrae, the team suspects that other parts of the sauropod’s skeleton are also intact, though not yet unearthed. As digs proceed, the research team may be able to better understand exactly what they’ve found.
More: Meet Meraxes Gigas, a Ferocious Dinosaur With Teeny Arms Like T. Rex