“The tap has been turned off,” said Poland’s Climate Minister Anna Moskwa on Polish radio. Poland and Bulgaria have been without gas from Russia since yesterday. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Moscow’s actions “an attempt by Russia to blackmail us.” However, both countries had planned to phase out Russian gas anyway and serious supply bottlenecks were not to be feared, it was said after a crisis meeting in Brussels. Read Eric Bonse and Manuel Berkel‘s analysis of how the two countries are securing gas supplies now and in the future and what von der Leyen had to say about payments in rubles.
Fertilizer prices were already extraordinarily high in February. Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, they have risen by a further 40 percent, according to the EU Commission. The problem is that many EU countries are also dependent on imports from Russia in this area. But these are now failing to materialize. In addition, high energy prices are driving up production costs for fertilizers. This could have a strong impact on food supplies, as Timo Landenberger reports. The German Farmers’ Association is already warning of drastic losses in harvests.
The situation in Poland and Bulgaria is under control, it was said after a crisis meeting in Brussels. Serious supply bottlenecks are not to be feared, said an EU diplomat. Poland and Bulgaria had planned to phase out Russian gas by the end of the year anyway. Poland would be affected by 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year, but could get supplies from LNG terminals, and storage facilities in the country were 76 percent full, tweeted Bruegel expert Simone Tagliapietra.
Bulgaria is 90 percent dependent on Russian imports and storage levels are only 15 percent, but the imported volume from Russia is comparatively low at 3 bcm. Bulgaria has an interconnector with Romania and the IGB pipeline to Greece is scheduled to come on stream in September at the latest. Through it, 1 bcm per year is expected to flow from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria in the future. In addition, Bulgaria has already booked LNG deliveries through Greek ports, a spokesman for the Energy Ministry in Athens said yesterday. In total, the IGB has a capacity of 3 bcm, which can be increased to 5 bcm, according to the Athens newspaper Kathimerini.
Gas transit to other states is not affected by the steps taken against the Polish and Bulgarian companies, according to Tagliapietra and utility Uniper. So far, they see no major changes on the Yamal route, Uniper CCO Niek den Hollander told analysts. However, CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach warned of unpredictable reactions from Moscow in an interview with the German newspaper FAZ: “If the West decides to impose an oil embargo, it cannot be ruled out that the Russians will react with a gas supply freeze.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of blackmail in view of the action from Moscow. Gazprom’s announcement “is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail,” she said. However, she said the EU was prepared: “Our response will be immediate, united and coordinated.”
Her agency will ensure that Gazprom’s decisions have the least possible impact on consumers, the CDU politician said. The commission also wants to ensure that gas storage facilities are full – especially by sourcing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States.
However, there are no signs of a quick solution. The Commission does not intend to present a strategy for phasing out fossil fuels from Russia until the end of May. In addition, many EU countries – including Germany – cannot yet do without gas supplies.
This leads to national go-it-alone. For example, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer traveled to Moscow in mid-April to secure gas supplies in a one-on-one meeting with Kremlin leader Putin. Putin declared that payment could continue to be made in euros, it was said afterward in Vienna. Hungary’s head of government, Viktor Orbán, in turn, declared his willingness to pay in rubles if necessary.
The EU Commission itself has since changed its analysis of the Moscow decree on payment modalities. Last week, the authority stated that payments in rubles did not constitute a violation of EU sanctions in every case. The Commission even published guidance on the matter.
On Wednesday, von der Leyen expressed the opposite view. Anyone who deviates from the European line and pays in rubles violates the sanctions resolutions and must expect high risks, she said in a press conference. What those risks are, she initially left open. She went on to say that 97 percent of the supply contracts with Russia provide for payments in euros or dollars. The EU states are bound by this.
According to a SPIEGEL report, there are two main sticking points in the payment dispute. First, Putin’s financial tricks could shift the currency risk to customers in the West. If the ruble exchange rate rises, gas would become more expensive for energy importers.
Secondly, the declared aim of the EU sanctions is to keep the Russian central bank out of currency transactions. According to the Commission’s latest analysis, however, this can no longer be ruled out with the new payment procedure demanded by Moscow. The Kremlin is leaving the details unclear. With Manuel Berkel and rtr
Empty supermarket shelves and in some cases very high prices for staple foods continue to fuel concerns about a food shortage. Meanwhile, those responsible in politics and agriculture are almost praying that supplies are secure. In its communication on food security, the European Commission stated at the end of March: There is no reason to fear a shortage. The EU agricultural sector is “largely self-sufficient” in food production. However, this is only partly true.
In fact, achieving the highest possible degree of self-sufficiency is one of the declared goals of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and for important staple foods such as wheat or barley, the EU is a net exporter. However, this could soon change, as the war in Ukraine is revealing international dependencies and interdependencies in agriculture as well. Production costs for agricultural products have risen enormously in some cases in recent weeks.
This is particularly evident in the area of fertilizers, where prices were already several times higher than the previous year’s level in February in some cases, and have risen by a further 40 percent since the outbreak of the war, according to the Commission. The highest level ever recorded, says CDU MEP Norbert Lins. The chairman of the Agriculture Committee, therefore, fears a strong impact on the food industry in the medium term.
With around 14 percent, Russia is one of the most important producers of mineral fertilizer on the world market. Several EU countries are dependent on imports from Russia, but these are now failing to materialize, not least because of the EU sanctions against Moscow. In addition, high energy prices are driving up production costs for fertilizers. This is because gas is important not only as a source of energy, but also as a raw material for nitrogen fertilizer, which is produced from ammonia. According to the German Agricultural Industry Association, the price of gas accounts for up to 90 percent of production costs.
The fears in the industry of a possible embargo or gas supply stop from Russia and a further shortage of gas supply are correspondingly great. “The Federal Minister of Economics is responsible for the gas emergency plan, we are in close contact and he, like the Federal Network Agency, is sensitive to the needs of the agriculture and food industry,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL) said when asked.
Nevertheless, in order to remain profitable, many manufacturers of nitrogen fertilizers are already curbing their production. Phosphorus and potassium, the most commonly used fertilizers alongside nitrogen, are also becoming scarce. It is true that the price of gas is less decisive here. However, Russia and Belarus alone, which is also sanctioned by the West, account for around 40 percent of potash fertilizer exports on the world market. This is driving up prices.
Other potash producers are benefiting. Fertilizer producer S+K, for example, expects good business and significantly revised its earnings forecast for the current year upwards in mid-April. Herbert Dorfmann, Member of the European Parliament for the South Tyrolean People’s Party, speaks of an “absurd price situation”. The agricultural economist accuses the companies of exploiting the difficult situation and calls on the Commission to investigate a possible market failure.
The Brussels-based authority did not respond to an inquiry from Europe.Table. The German Agricultural Industry Association, on the other hand, stated: “Fertilizers are globally traded commodities, and prices are determined by supply and demand. In this context, Germany and Europe play a subordinate role on a global scale, both as suppliers and buyers.”
For the current year, the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) still fears little loss of harvests as a result of the fertilizer shortage. However, if the situation does not improve, yield declines of up to 40 percent must be expected in 2023, said DBV President Bernhard Krüsken. “To ensure supplies for the 2023 growing season, we are calling on the German government to establish a fertilizer reserve.”
However, the latter rejects this. “Taking fertilizer off the market would further exacerbate the shortage that already exists.” A reserve would also be difficult to implement for technical reasons of safety and storability, a BMEL spokeswoman said. More important is more efficient use of fertilizers, for example through improved application techniques or measurement of nitrogen content. In the medium term, the principle of the circular economy must be brought back to the fore.
Norbert Lins expects direct help for agriculture from the EU Parliament’s demand to the Commission to suspend anti-dumping duties on fertilizers. Another measure could be a switch from chemical to animal fertilizers, says the MEP.
In fact, many farms have been forced to adapt their fertilizer management due to the tense situation, the BMEL confirms. Instead of using mineral fertilizers, the purchase of animal manure, so-called farm manure, from regions where animal husbandry is concentrated is now becoming much more attractive. “However, it cannot completely replace mineral fertilizer,” says DBV Secretary General Küsken.
The biggest problem is dependence on fossil fuels, says Martin Häusling, agricultural policy spokesman for the Greens in the EU Parliament. Instead of lapsing into actionism and subsidizing fertilizer production, he said, the green transition must be pushed further. “Two percent of global CO2 emissions come from nitrogen production alone. So the collateral damage is not entirely insignificant,” Häusling said.
Paula Cipierre experienced what life with little privacy can feel like as a teenager. At sixteen, the daughter of a German mother and an English father left Germany to spend the last two years of her schooling at an international boarding school, the United World College in Norway. “We were housed in rooms of five,” the 32-year-old recalls. “My bedmates included girls from Lithuania, Norway, Tibet, and Western Sahara, two of whom were refugees.”
Sixteen years later, Paula Cipierre is an expert on privacy issues as EU head of privacy and public policy at software maker Palantir Technologies. The company offers – quite controversially – products such as the Gotham platform, which security agencies use in law enforcement and defense. Here, software engineers and data scientists work hand in hand with lawyers and ethics experts. Paula Cipierre is still in daily contact with a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds – possibly because she herself likes to take unusual paths.
Cipierre is one of a handful of young women working on data protection issues at a software company. She is a humanities and cultural studies graduate: She studied French literature, European cultural studies, and Middle Eastern studies, all at the renowned Princeton University in the USA. In 2012, while studying for her master’s degree in public policy at the Hertie School of Governance, she helped organize a conference on the then-planned EU General Data Protection Regulation as a student assistant at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). Since then, she has not let go of the topic with its legal and cultural facets.
Shortly after Edward Snowden revealed that Internet users are being spied on by the US Foreign Intelligence Service, Paula Cipierre devoted her master’s thesis to transatlantic privacy governance, then began a Ph.D. in “Media, Culture, and Communication” with a philosopher at New York University – on the topic of how to incorporate legal and normative privacy requirements into the design of new technologies from the outset. This is a topic that otherwise mainly occupies lawyers and computer scientists.
Cipierre put her doctorate on hold at the end of 2016 to join Palantir, first in New York, then in Munich, and finally in Berlin. “I wanted to be closer to the topics I had been researching for years.”
As the company’s Privacy and Public Policy Officer, her responsibilities now include explaining to government and private customers, as well as the broader public, how Palantir handles data privacy and data ethics in practice: “In both the government and commercial sectors, we work on socially important issues. As a company, we want to communicate transparently: what can our platforms do? And what protections are built into them?”
Cipierre lives in Berlin and is currently studying information technology law part-time, so she is also continuing her legal education – and still benefits from her first degree, during which she learned French, Spanish, and also Hebrew: “In different languages, people think differently about certain concepts. Programming languages are also languages. Now I help translate legal and ethical principles into our software.” Janna Degener-Storr
“The tap has been turned off,” said Poland’s Climate Minister Anna Moskwa on Polish radio. Poland and Bulgaria have been without gas from Russia since yesterday. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Moscow’s actions “an attempt by Russia to blackmail us.” However, both countries had planned to phase out Russian gas anyway and serious supply bottlenecks were not to be feared, it was said after a crisis meeting in Brussels. Read Eric Bonse and Manuel Berkel‘s analysis of how the two countries are securing gas supplies now and in the future and what von der Leyen had to say about payments in rubles.
Fertilizer prices were already extraordinarily high in February. Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, they have risen by a further 40 percent, according to the EU Commission. The problem is that many EU countries are also dependent on imports from Russia in this area. But these are now failing to materialize. In addition, high energy prices are driving up production costs for fertilizers. This could have a strong impact on food supplies, as Timo Landenberger reports. The German Farmers’ Association is already warning of drastic losses in harvests.
The situation in Poland and Bulgaria is under control, it was said after a crisis meeting in Brussels. Serious supply bottlenecks are not to be feared, said an EU diplomat. Poland and Bulgaria had planned to phase out Russian gas by the end of the year anyway. Poland would be affected by 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year, but could get supplies from LNG terminals, and storage facilities in the country were 76 percent full, tweeted Bruegel expert Simone Tagliapietra.
Bulgaria is 90 percent dependent on Russian imports and storage levels are only 15 percent, but the imported volume from Russia is comparatively low at 3 bcm. Bulgaria has an interconnector with Romania and the IGB pipeline to Greece is scheduled to come on stream in September at the latest. Through it, 1 bcm per year is expected to flow from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria in the future. In addition, Bulgaria has already booked LNG deliveries through Greek ports, a spokesman for the Energy Ministry in Athens said yesterday. In total, the IGB has a capacity of 3 bcm, which can be increased to 5 bcm, according to the Athens newspaper Kathimerini.
Gas transit to other states is not affected by the steps taken against the Polish and Bulgarian companies, according to Tagliapietra and utility Uniper. So far, they see no major changes on the Yamal route, Uniper CCO Niek den Hollander told analysts. However, CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach warned of unpredictable reactions from Moscow in an interview with the German newspaper FAZ: “If the West decides to impose an oil embargo, it cannot be ruled out that the Russians will react with a gas supply freeze.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of blackmail in view of the action from Moscow. Gazprom’s announcement “is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail,” she said. However, she said the EU was prepared: “Our response will be immediate, united and coordinated.”
Her agency will ensure that Gazprom’s decisions have the least possible impact on consumers, the CDU politician said. The commission also wants to ensure that gas storage facilities are full – especially by sourcing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States.
However, there are no signs of a quick solution. The Commission does not intend to present a strategy for phasing out fossil fuels from Russia until the end of May. In addition, many EU countries – including Germany – cannot yet do without gas supplies.
This leads to national go-it-alone. For example, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer traveled to Moscow in mid-April to secure gas supplies in a one-on-one meeting with Kremlin leader Putin. Putin declared that payment could continue to be made in euros, it was said afterward in Vienna. Hungary’s head of government, Viktor Orbán, in turn, declared his willingness to pay in rubles if necessary.
The EU Commission itself has since changed its analysis of the Moscow decree on payment modalities. Last week, the authority stated that payments in rubles did not constitute a violation of EU sanctions in every case. The Commission even published guidance on the matter.
On Wednesday, von der Leyen expressed the opposite view. Anyone who deviates from the European line and pays in rubles violates the sanctions resolutions and must expect high risks, she said in a press conference. What those risks are, she initially left open. She went on to say that 97 percent of the supply contracts with Russia provide for payments in euros or dollars. The EU states are bound by this.
According to a SPIEGEL report, there are two main sticking points in the payment dispute. First, Putin’s financial tricks could shift the currency risk to customers in the West. If the ruble exchange rate rises, gas would become more expensive for energy importers.
Secondly, the declared aim of the EU sanctions is to keep the Russian central bank out of currency transactions. According to the Commission’s latest analysis, however, this can no longer be ruled out with the new payment procedure demanded by Moscow. The Kremlin is leaving the details unclear. With Manuel Berkel and rtr
Empty supermarket shelves and in some cases very high prices for staple foods continue to fuel concerns about a food shortage. Meanwhile, those responsible in politics and agriculture are almost praying that supplies are secure. In its communication on food security, the European Commission stated at the end of March: There is no reason to fear a shortage. The EU agricultural sector is “largely self-sufficient” in food production. However, this is only partly true.
In fact, achieving the highest possible degree of self-sufficiency is one of the declared goals of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and for important staple foods such as wheat or barley, the EU is a net exporter. However, this could soon change, as the war in Ukraine is revealing international dependencies and interdependencies in agriculture as well. Production costs for agricultural products have risen enormously in some cases in recent weeks.
This is particularly evident in the area of fertilizers, where prices were already several times higher than the previous year’s level in February in some cases, and have risen by a further 40 percent since the outbreak of the war, according to the Commission. The highest level ever recorded, says CDU MEP Norbert Lins. The chairman of the Agriculture Committee, therefore, fears a strong impact on the food industry in the medium term.
With around 14 percent, Russia is one of the most important producers of mineral fertilizer on the world market. Several EU countries are dependent on imports from Russia, but these are now failing to materialize, not least because of the EU sanctions against Moscow. In addition, high energy prices are driving up production costs for fertilizers. This is because gas is important not only as a source of energy, but also as a raw material for nitrogen fertilizer, which is produced from ammonia. According to the German Agricultural Industry Association, the price of gas accounts for up to 90 percent of production costs.
The fears in the industry of a possible embargo or gas supply stop from Russia and a further shortage of gas supply are correspondingly great. “The Federal Minister of Economics is responsible for the gas emergency plan, we are in close contact and he, like the Federal Network Agency, is sensitive to the needs of the agriculture and food industry,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Agriculture (BMEL) said when asked.
Nevertheless, in order to remain profitable, many manufacturers of nitrogen fertilizers are already curbing their production. Phosphorus and potassium, the most commonly used fertilizers alongside nitrogen, are also becoming scarce. It is true that the price of gas is less decisive here. However, Russia and Belarus alone, which is also sanctioned by the West, account for around 40 percent of potash fertilizer exports on the world market. This is driving up prices.
Other potash producers are benefiting. Fertilizer producer S+K, for example, expects good business and significantly revised its earnings forecast for the current year upwards in mid-April. Herbert Dorfmann, Member of the European Parliament for the South Tyrolean People’s Party, speaks of an “absurd price situation”. The agricultural economist accuses the companies of exploiting the difficult situation and calls on the Commission to investigate a possible market failure.
The Brussels-based authority did not respond to an inquiry from Europe.Table. The German Agricultural Industry Association, on the other hand, stated: “Fertilizers are globally traded commodities, and prices are determined by supply and demand. In this context, Germany and Europe play a subordinate role on a global scale, both as suppliers and buyers.”
For the current year, the German Farmers’ Association (DBV) still fears little loss of harvests as a result of the fertilizer shortage. However, if the situation does not improve, yield declines of up to 40 percent must be expected in 2023, said DBV President Bernhard Krüsken. “To ensure supplies for the 2023 growing season, we are calling on the German government to establish a fertilizer reserve.”
However, the latter rejects this. “Taking fertilizer off the market would further exacerbate the shortage that already exists.” A reserve would also be difficult to implement for technical reasons of safety and storability, a BMEL spokeswoman said. More important is more efficient use of fertilizers, for example through improved application techniques or measurement of nitrogen content. In the medium term, the principle of the circular economy must be brought back to the fore.
Norbert Lins expects direct help for agriculture from the EU Parliament’s demand to the Commission to suspend anti-dumping duties on fertilizers. Another measure could be a switch from chemical to animal fertilizers, says the MEP.
In fact, many farms have been forced to adapt their fertilizer management due to the tense situation, the BMEL confirms. Instead of using mineral fertilizers, the purchase of animal manure, so-called farm manure, from regions where animal husbandry is concentrated is now becoming much more attractive. “However, it cannot completely replace mineral fertilizer,” says DBV Secretary General Küsken.
The biggest problem is dependence on fossil fuels, says Martin Häusling, agricultural policy spokesman for the Greens in the EU Parliament. Instead of lapsing into actionism and subsidizing fertilizer production, he said, the green transition must be pushed further. “Two percent of global CO2 emissions come from nitrogen production alone. So the collateral damage is not entirely insignificant,” Häusling said.
Paula Cipierre experienced what life with little privacy can feel like as a teenager. At sixteen, the daughter of a German mother and an English father left Germany to spend the last two years of her schooling at an international boarding school, the United World College in Norway. “We were housed in rooms of five,” the 32-year-old recalls. “My bedmates included girls from Lithuania, Norway, Tibet, and Western Sahara, two of whom were refugees.”
Sixteen years later, Paula Cipierre is an expert on privacy issues as EU head of privacy and public policy at software maker Palantir Technologies. The company offers – quite controversially – products such as the Gotham platform, which security agencies use in law enforcement and defense. Here, software engineers and data scientists work hand in hand with lawyers and ethics experts. Paula Cipierre is still in daily contact with a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds – possibly because she herself likes to take unusual paths.
Cipierre is one of a handful of young women working on data protection issues at a software company. She is a humanities and cultural studies graduate: She studied French literature, European cultural studies, and Middle Eastern studies, all at the renowned Princeton University in the USA. In 2012, while studying for her master’s degree in public policy at the Hertie School of Governance, she helped organize a conference on the then-planned EU General Data Protection Regulation as a student assistant at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). Since then, she has not let go of the topic with its legal and cultural facets.
Shortly after Edward Snowden revealed that Internet users are being spied on by the US Foreign Intelligence Service, Paula Cipierre devoted her master’s thesis to transatlantic privacy governance, then began a Ph.D. in “Media, Culture, and Communication” with a philosopher at New York University – on the topic of how to incorporate legal and normative privacy requirements into the design of new technologies from the outset. This is a topic that otherwise mainly occupies lawyers and computer scientists.
Cipierre put her doctorate on hold at the end of 2016 to join Palantir, first in New York, then in Munich, and finally in Berlin. “I wanted to be closer to the topics I had been researching for years.”
As the company’s Privacy and Public Policy Officer, her responsibilities now include explaining to government and private customers, as well as the broader public, how Palantir handles data privacy and data ethics in practice: “In both the government and commercial sectors, we work on socially important issues. As a company, we want to communicate transparently: what can our platforms do? And what protections are built into them?”
Cipierre lives in Berlin and is currently studying information technology law part-time, so she is also continuing her legal education – and still benefits from her first degree, during which she learned French, Spanish, and also Hebrew: “In different languages, people think differently about certain concepts. Programming languages are also languages. Now I help translate legal and ethical principles into our software.” Janna Degener-Storr
