The contents of this article are written with authoritative materials and personal opinions. The source of the literature has been marked at the end of the article, so please know.
Merkel said in the Federal Assembly: "Europe will ultimately pay the price for this conflict."At the time, many people thought it was just a warning from politicians. In 2025, Merkel's prediction was right. Europe was not a party to the war, but it was the first party to be exhausted in the war.
Up to the present moment in the Russia-Ukraine War, what is really hurting is not Russia on the battlefield, nor is it the United States that is remotely controlling behind the scenes, but the seemingly innocent Europe.
When the Russian war began, the gas valve was broken. Energy is the lifeblood of industry, especially for Germany.After the disaster, the whole of Europe began to tremble.
Cheap natural gas from the past Russian pipelines no longer, Europe turned to buy US liquefied natural gas, the price directly doubled several times.
Data for the first quarter of 2025 show that: U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe already account for 24% of the EU's total gas sources.
Russia's proportion has dropped to 14%, but the hidden price behind it is huge. American gas is compressed and transported, and the price is two to three times higher than that of Russian pipeline gas.Structural costs are enough to collapse an economy built on manufacturing.
Germany is a typical representative. energy prices are the highest, and manufacturing is the first. BASF directly announced the transfer of some production capacity to the United States for the simple reason that the United States has cheap energy and tax incentives.
Volkswagen did not want to fall behind, and also started to build factories in the United States. The glory created in Germany in the past has now been quietly emptied out by U.S. subsidies.
On the surface, this is an independent choice for enterprises, but essentially a strategic pressure at the national level. The United States profits from high-priced gas, as well as extracting large amounts of European capital and technology through the Inflation Cutting Act, the Chip and Science Act.
Faced with the energy dilemma, the EU is not unresponsive. As early as 2022, The EU has launched the "REPowerEU" plan to completely get rid of its dependence on Russian energy and improve its energy independence by 2027.
The slogans are loud, the plans are numerous, but the reality is skinny.
Relying on policies alone is far from enough, we need infrastructure, new suppliers, internal consensus, and more. But the opinions of European countries differ, Southern Europe wants to develop photovoltaics, Northern Europe wants to develop wind energy, and Eastern Europe does not believe in this set.
France's nuclear power plant has no time, Germany's de-nuclear and gas decommissioning, Poland restarted coal power, and Italy relied on the ship to respond to liquefied gas.
The energy chaos has caused a direct fiscal deficit. In order to subsidize high gas prices, governments have no choice but to pay heavily, and public debt is rising faster and faster.
The German Finance Minister said: "If the structure doesn't change, we will be stuck in an unsustainable budget cycle."
The war did not take place in Europe, but it turned the European social system upside down. More than 8 million Ukrainian refugees flooded into Europe, and it was difficult for countries to absorb them in a short period of time. The medical system has been paralyzed, employment pressure has increased sharply, and welfare budgets have been strained, and already tense social conflicts have been further torn apart.
Refugees are not numbers, but the actual cost of food, housing and childbirth.The population of the small French city of Le Mans increased by 10 percent in a year, and the school districts exploded; in some Polish cities there were conflicts between refugees and locals.
The rise of social anxiety in Germany gives far-right political parties an opportunity to promote their refugee threat theory. Therefore, their support rate has risen sharply, while traditional mainstream political parties can only lose fiasco in local elections.People are no longer concerned about who represents justice, but only about who can get electricity prices down.
War has not only torn apart society, but Europe itself. Mertz, the German Chancellor, made a clear decision. After the new German Chancellor Mertz took office, It has repeatedly emphasized the need to promote cooperation with China in new energy, chips, manufacturing and other aspects to reduce dependence on the United States.
This position represents a realistic tendency in Western Europe to find another balance between the United States and Russia.
But Eastern European countries are ungrateful. Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and other countries, still insist on standing on the side of the United States, believing that without the U.S. “safety umbrella”, Russia will sooner or later attack its home door.Geo-security concerns have turned the unity achieved by the EU in diplomatic and economic terms into empty talk.
Brussels wants coordination, but is becoming more and more like a teethless tiger, a “united Europe,” now a “union of divisions.”
Sanctions cannot bring Russia down, but force it to the east. From January to April 2025, China's imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia dropped by 28% year-on-year. But imports of natural gas through pipelines increased by 31.6%. Behind this is the growing maturity of the energy corridor built by Russia and Central Asian countries.
This means that Russia has succeeded in transitioning, energy exports remain stable and no longer rely on European markets. The export channels of natural gas, crude oil and coal are expanding to the east, and Asia is becoming Russia's new hinterland.
In this way, Merkel's prediction was confirmed in reverse. Without an energy balance with Russia, Europe can only rely on high-priced energy longevity and ultimately crush itself.
The performance of the European economy is no longer optimistic. In 2025, Germany's GDP experienced negative growth for the second consecutive year, a decrease of 5% compared with the total in 2019.Manufacturing orders have shrunk, unemployment has risen, small and medium-sized enterprises have gone bankrupt, and Germans have begun to question whether they can still hold the flag of the “European economic engine”.
The proportion of the entire EU GDP will drop from 15.42% in 2018 to 14.55% in 2025.This is not a statistical mistake, but a real recession.Settled in the global industrial chain, Europe’s influence is gradually weakening.
Merkel did not expect the prophecy to appear so soon that Europe was not a defeat country, but the biggest loser in this war. energy out-of-control, industrial outflows, financial over-spending, social crackdown, political division, all pressed on this superficial prosperity but internal emptiness of the continent.
The Russian-Ukrainian war is still ongoing, far from over, but Europe’s most difficult time may have begun.
reference
1. "The European Parliament seeks to accelerate the phase-out of Russian oil and natural gas" 2025-10-03 23:49 | Source: Sina Finance
2. "Annual income of 500 billion yuan, the terrible BASF!" 2025-10-09 14:22 |Source: Sina Finance
3. "U.S. LNG export growth faces five challenges!" 2025-10-26 08:25 |Source: Sina Finance
Murts issued the first government statement, referring to China, 2025-05-15 14:37 PM Source: Press Release