Germany gets 40% of the gas that we use to heat our homes in winter from russia. Russia on the other side build all its infrastructure in a way to bring that gas to germany, since we are their main customer, their infrastructure to other buyers like china is bad. Now that we already took all the ukraine from russia and putin tries to hold at least the crimean peninsula we can impose hard sanctions on russia and russia has nothing to strike back. Winter in germany was incrdible warm this year and we already have spring temperatures while our national gas and oil reserves are on a maximum level of 20% of our annual use. Because of that chancellor Merkel can easily impose sanctions on russia without fearing that we could be hurt from this as well. Its very good position for us.
I know Merkel thinks that Putin isn't playing with a full deck, but if Russia keeps Crimea and the sanctions stay, what happens next winter? Does Merkel have to lift them? It seems that would be a political loser either way.
No, since our tanks are full russia cant just stop the gas, we can change suppliers since we have time, russia cant switch customers so easily, since all its infrastructure depends on germany.
I believe around 68% of Russia's exports are fossil fuels. Serious trade cutbacks on them would be a crippling blow to the Russian economy.
