Because Germany is still refusing to pay for Russian natural gas imports in rubles as requested, the country now faces long-term supply shortages that threaten to cripple its economy. Germany has now implemented “stage two” of its emergency gas plan.

Germany’s emergency gas plan has three stages, and the country seems to be advancing rather rapidly through them as consequences of Western sanctions on Russia begin to manifest. It is all fun and games to talk a big game against Russia until you start to run out of your economy’s lifeblood. Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced that Germany will move to “stage two” of its emergency gas plan at the current time, which comes with an expectation that the country might run out of gas this upcoming winter, according to a report by Natural News. 

“We mustn’t delude ourselves,” Habeck said in an English-translated statement about the issue. “Cutting gas supplies is an economic attack on us by Putin.”  This statement somehow reads like a veiled complaint and victimization by Russia. Unfortunately, this is how more countries get dragged into wars.

Habeck continued to stay that gas supplies over winter will be really tight if additional actions are not taken. “We defend ourselves against this,” Habeck went on to state in his English-translated speech. “But it will be a rocky road that we as a country now have to walk. Even if you don’t really feel it yet: we are in a gas crisis. This will affect industrial production and become a major burden for many consumers,” he says. “It’s an external shock.”

Other countries have gone back to using coal in order to avoid paying for natural gas in rubles.

Europe Makes Plans To Ration Natural Gas As It Switches Back To Coal

Government intervention is not required until phase three of Germany’s emergency gas plan, and the country says it is not quite there yet. But the nation soon could be, especially if market fundamentals no longer apply to the gas situation. The emergency gas plan states that alert level phases are triggered whenever there is a “disruption of gas supply or exceptionally high gas demand which results in significant deterioration of the gas supply situation … but the market is still able to manage that disruption or demand without the need to resort to non-market-based measures.”

In the interim, Germany is making plans to stockpile gas supplies while they play the victim.