The old cynic in me wonders what it would take, for Germany to care about building major new infrastructure fast. Asteroid Dino-Doom 2.0 headed straight for Dortmund, and the needed interceptor rockets stacked like logs outside the barely-started launch facility?

When covid hit, governments across Germany realized wait, we need videoconferencing for students!. For the prime ministers and their ministers of education, this meant they could either shine in comparison to the others, or the opposition would rip them apart in the next election.

Suddenly: money everywhere, zero red tape, worry about compliance later, get it done now.

So, if the political will is there, things are possible, and I can easily imagine our country going a lot harder than that if the danger was imminent enough.

So the conclusion is that they don’t yet believe the danger is imminent?

As a Dutch person whose country is equally dependent on gas (but happens to be sitting on gas as well, which can’t be used for political reasons), I’m flabbergasted by the optimism of the politicians.

Yes, it may be fine, but why bet on it? Why isn’t there more central EU coordination in case there actually will be a gas shortage, and we need to divide the gas? Who gets what and who should deliver to whom?

>Why isn’t there more central EU coordination in case there actually will be a gas shortage, and we need to divide the gas?

Look no further than back to early Covid again, remember the disparities and chaos wrt borders? When people finally realized the potential gravity of the situation, politicians went full "each man to himself". Saying "we distribute gas elsewhere while you are freezing" isn't part of any regular elected politicians playbook, don't you think?

To your first question, I haven't met anyone who openly doubts he'll be fine personally. The situation is tense, but not meteor heading towards dortmund tense.

Sounds credible. OTOH...lack of Student Videoconferencing showed up instantly in millions of homes, and I suspect that political opposition to Student Videoconferencing was pretty light.

Vs. with natural gas, there aren't so many people shivering in the dark now that all the carbon-neutral, Green, anti-global-warming, NIMBY, etc., etc. opposition can just be ignored.

Apparently heat pumps are sold out and all the workers who are able to install them are booked up for the year. It's a bit late for drastic improvement there.

A lot of manufacturing for these materials aren't in Europe though. New factories and associated logistics chains, finding and training workers, these things are difficult to set up in a few months, never mind the actual process of renovating millions of homes.

It certainly shouldn’t be ignored, simply because it might take some time. Targeting public housing and (responsibly) incentivising landlords to improve less efficient homes would go a long way.

It's false, Italy didn't use EU subsidies, it's all plain italian debt.

Berlin still has some 25000 street lanterns that run on gas. Each of them burns enough gas to heat an apartment.

my god- the EU redistributed tax revenue from member countries to fund 100% of home improvements in Italy? I can't even imagine.

You don't have to imagine, it is commonplace around the world. Lots of tax revenue from countries all around the world is distributed to different areas of the country/world (obvious e.g. foreign aid). If the amount of tax isn't excessive, allows everyone to have a good standard of living, and is resulting in something positive, why not?

As a US citizen, there is no way I would stand for getting taxed to pay 100% of a home improvement bill in Canada. In hindsight, brexit is starting to look pretty damn smart

That's not the situation though. It's more like federal tax revenue from residents of California being distributed to other less well-off states. Or re-distribution payments from Alberta and Quebec to Nova Scotia and Manitoba.

Guess who has and is building up more (two very large new terminals) infractructure for unloading LNG from the sea and moving it to continental Europe (also EU funds weren't actually used).

You don't have, it's false, it's all plain old italian debt.

What's so wrong helping a neighbour? That reduces the energy costs for everyone around the world not only Italy.

You’re not “helping a neighbor” - this analogy is flawed. It’d be more correct to say “a third party with incentives that are entirely unrelated to the matter showed up at my home, placed a gun to my head and demanded I transfer a third of my checking account to him. He then took this money and used it to curry favor from another party by distributing it to his friends to do some repairs and improvements on the home of yet another person in the hopes that said person would support the same thing happening to the next guy.”

What makes him a 3rd party instead of your neighbour? If he lives near your home, you trade to with him, visit him, exchange goods and fix regional issues and even try to global issues, isn't it a good neighbour? Helping him may prove wise. I doubt there was any gun involved. I suspect a more sensible approach that involved cooperation and negotiation. Italy is the third-largest net contributor to the budget of the European Union so I don't see what made you think the deal is so one-sided. Now it has more access to gas so it may share some. This is precisly why it's good to have close relationships with your neighbours.

What makes him a 3rd party instead of your neighbour? If he lives near your home, you trade to with him, visit him, exchange goods and fix regional issues and even try to global issues, isn't it a good neighbour? Helping him may prove wise. I doubt there was any gun involved. I suspect a more sensible approach that involved cooperation and negotiation. Italy is the third-largest net contributor to the budget of the European Union so I don't see what made you think the deal is so one-sided.

I'd feel the same way if my neighbor texted me and informed me that he was making a withdrawal from my bank account to go to a nice dinner, when I was staying in for the night to save money. Being subject to taxation by foreign bureaucrats who then decide where to bestow lavish gifts sounds like nightmare fuel

Increasing the energy efficiency is not exactly a lavish gift. Maybe some materialls that went into the project were even manufactured/provided by "you".

Somehow you see your neighbour a "foreigner" that eats your dinner and steals your money! You are not a nice guy.

Without cooperation you can't acomplish much as an individal human being nor as an individual country(bigger or smaller).

Maybe your neighbour is already helping you with cheaper food or whatever he is producing since his energy bill is now lower.