An immediate EU ban on gas imports from Russia would cost Germany 180 billion euros in 2022 in loss of production. This is the alarm launched today in the monthly bulletin by the Bundesbank that a Russian gas embargo would affect gross domestic product by 5% in 2022, triggering a surge in energy prices and one of the deepest recessions in decades. The central bank’s estimate is much more pessimistic than the one expressed last month by nine university economists that the impact of a total embargo on Russian energy imports would be “manageable” and would result in a loss of GDP of between 0.3 % and 3%.
The Bundesbank estimate therefore promises to rekindle the debate in the Union between those who push for an uncompromising line and those who are instead in favor of a more gradual approach, especially since Chancellor Olaf Scholz himself defined the academics’ estimates as “incorrect” and ” irresponsible “. According to the German Minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, Germany will only be able to do without Russian gas by 2024. According to data from the Berlin government, before the war in Ukraine, Russia accounted for 55% of all German gas imports. More than a third of that gas is consumed by the manufacturing sector.