Italy isn't as dependent as Germany, and the baltic states are small enough to switch suppliers a lot quicker than Germany can

Your info is wrong. Northern Italy, specially Lombardy region, is heavily industrialized. They depend a LOT on gas and oil. Those small baltic states are rather poor. The switch comes with additional costs but yeah, long term possible for them.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Mar 31 2022 02:20pm

I think you misunderstood the topic at hand - it wasn't a question of whether Italy depend on Russian gas, but whether Germany depends on Russian gas more than Italy, which they do

55% of Germany's imported gas is from Russia, however for Italy it's 45%. Italy have gas storage sites that are more full than the EU average. Algeria can increase supply through the transmed pipeline to Italy quite easily, this isn't available to Germany

Not to mention that if Germany goes down then it'll take most of Europe with it, whereas if Italy go down you might have the inconvenience of buying burberry instead of prada

I think you still didn't get the extent. Are you from Europe? Northern Italy is comparable to Bavaria in its industrial output. They heavily rely on gas and oil that's why they have reserves even though their winters are mild. You're comparing a not too much off percentage numbers 55% vs 45%. The actual amount consumed by industry is more important than some percentages. Italy doesn't produce pizza and prada only, only ignorants from US think that. If northern Italy, South Germany and eastern France crumble, say goodbye to EU. Those are the areas where critical industry is located.
Basically, North Italy keeps the rest of the Italy intact with their taxes otherwise south Italy would be comparable to Romania or even worse.

Actual source:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Industrial_production_statistics

Italy is even more industrialized than France.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Mar 31 2022 03:14pm

Italy might not be quite as dependent on Russian gas as Germany, but they are still so dependent on it that they'd face a catastrophic recession if the Russian gas deliveries were shut off from one day to the next. And keep in mind that they're coming from a much lower economic baseline than Germany, with much higher unemployment, a much higher rate of public debt, a less healthy banking system and less dynamic economic growth. A 5% GDP contraction in Italy might have more devastating social effects than a 9% contraction in Germany.

Yes I am. I agree with many of your points, but they're not relevant to what I was saying



Germany's economy is 2x the size of Italy's in terms of purcashing power, that tells you all you need to know

This post was edited by dro94 on Mar 31 2022 03:47pm

Italy has got 60million population, we've got 83 million. Back to the topic, those sanctions are going to affect industrial output the most hence I provided data about industry. In terms of chemical industry, both Germany and Italy are going to be hit almost equally should Putler pull the plug.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Mar 31 2022 04:02pm

the eurozone is done if that happens

its kinda funny when other countries try to shit on germany for needing resources, but they dont mind relying on us being an actual industrial country that produces actual stuff that others need and grab our tax money via the EU

by all means do it, burn it all to the ground



talking about social effects, the citizens of italy and most other EU countries are significantly wealthier than germans with a much higher networth, savings, real estate ownership, earlier and higher pensions

we are a fucking low wage, high tax labor camp for europe

this talk about "sacrifices for freedom" is just absolutely disgusting as if covid wasnt bad enough for millions of people

the reality is that those pushing for an energy embargo have no idea what a collapse of the chemical industry really means

This post was edited by JohnnyMcCoy on Mar 31 2022 05:23pm

Imho, this push for a voluntary embargo (rather than Putin pulling the plug) is mostly coming from the Greens and the large swath of journalists who are ideologically aligned with them. If you ask me, they secretly see the current crisis as a golden opportunity to force their "sacrifice-and-restrictions"-agenda onto the country, economic/living standard consequences be damned.

These upscale limousine liberals would be all too willing to sacrifice 20 or even 30% of our wealth for their pipe dream of a fossil-free society, but they know that such an agenda would be politically toxic and stand no chance of winning electoral majorities. So they hope to use the current situation and public mood to enact their agenda while blaming the negative side effects on the evil evil Putin...



It's a bit similar, albeit even more brazen, to the way Biden tries to retroactively explain all of his country's inflation woes with the war in Ukraine.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 31 2022 06:10pm

no doubt, all this tempo limit, less meat, less of everything talk is just stuff they always wanted to do

but its funny how the green ministers got grounded in reality, these would push so hard as an opposition party, now they bow to the sheiks while begging for gas