"No one should freeze" but German private households will need to reset their attitude towards energy and its conservation, Germany's Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister, Robert Habeck said during a visit to Austria on Tuesday (July 12), Reuters reports.
At a joint news conference with Austria's Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler in Vienna, Habeck said without private households saving energy there would be massive consequences for industry and the economy.
"If we had started ten years ago... if we would have acted as we have done in the last ten weeks, we could have reduced this dependency significantly, but we didn't. Now we are pressed for time to get the gas quantities, to fill the storage facilities, to use the opportunities to increase efficiencies and thus reduce gas consumption. How well we get through the winter or how little we can be blackmailed depends on this. And the work on this is a joint effort by Austria and Germany," the green party politician said, pushing blame on the previous administration.
"I want to remind you that the decision to build Nordstream 2, was taken in 2015, a year after the Russian attack on the Donbas and the occupation of Crimea," Habeck said when asked about lessons which could have been drawn earlier.
Habeck also said the energy crisis the two countries were currently facing also offered new opportunities such as expediting the introduction of renewables into the energy infrastructure.
As a landlocked country unable to build LNG-Terminals, Austria is dependent on gas supply via pipelines from Germany.
Gewessler said the only way to reach true energy independence and end blackmail was to rapidly expand renewable energies.
The Nord Stream 1 that carries Russian gas to Germany began annual maintenance on Monday (July 11), with flows expected to be halted until July 21, but governments, markets and companies are worried the shutdown might be extended due to conflict in Ukraine.
