East Germany predicted «existential consequences» due to sanctions

Oil storage tanks of the Druzhba pipeline. Archival photoMOSCOW, May 16. A possible embargo on Russian oil threatens East Germany with economic consequences, says Der Spiegel columnist Sabine Rennefants in an article. In particular, the existence of an oil refinery located here, which receives raw materials exclusively from Russia through the Druzhba pipeline, is at stake because of plans to impose an oil embargo. «The PCK refinery could be the first German victim of the crisis in Ukraine,» Rennefants warns.Media: The EU is considering postponing the embargo on Russian oilAccording to her, before that it was more about how the federal government can help Ukraine, while the impact of the crisis on the daily lives of Germans was relatively manageable. “In Schwedt, the situation is different now. Here, the Ukrainian crisis could now have existential consequences for a city of 30,000 people. A turning point is beginning, in the East, again,” the columnist writes. As Rennefants writes, nine out of ten cars in Berlin and Brandenburg run on gasoline and diesel fuel from the Schwedt plant, and the local airport is also supplied with it. According to the author, the leaders of the eastern regions of Germany would probably take a different decision on the issue of a possible embargo, if it were in their hands. In addition, in the east of the country, compared to its western part, there is more skepticism about the Ukrainian course of the government, she recalls. In particular, the majority of East Germans in the course of the polls spoke out against the supply of weapons to Kiev. Rennefants also notes that the prices in Germany due to the Ukrainian crisis were especially affected by the inhabitants of the east of the country, since in these regions people on average earn less and have less savings, than in the west. «In Schwedt, as well as elsewhere in the east, the struggle for the plant brings back bad memories of the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the existence of many large enterprises of the former GDR was threatened,» Rennefants concludes. The EU is currently negotiating a sixth a package of anti-Russian sanctions that include disconnecting a number of banks from SWIFT, personal sanctions, a ban on broadcasting in the EU of three Russian television companies, as well as a phased embargo on Russian oil. A number of EU countries are slowing down the adoption of the package, fearing the negative impact of the oil embargo on their economy.