Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is focusing on the Middle East to diversify energy supplies and reduce reliance on U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), aiming to secure Europe's largest economy. According to Jin10, Scholz, accompanied by a delegation of business leaders, will depart for Riyadh on Wednesday to meet Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. On Thursday, he will continue to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, returning to Berlin on Friday night.
Susanne Nies, an energy expert at the Helmholtz Research Center in Berlin, highlighted the risks associated with high dependency on the U.S., citing the authoritarian developments in the U.S. government and geopolitical blackmail risks. She suggested Germany consider alternatives such as increasing pipeline gas from Norway and LNG from Canada or Australia.
Claudia Kemfert, head of the Energy, Transport, and Environment Department at the German Institute for Economic Research, emphasized the problems of high dependency on the U.S., which creates new geopolitical and price risks. She advised that Germany should learn from this situation by reducing overall reliance on fossil fuels, rather than merely changing supplier countries.