Laws are negotiable between sovereign states representing the business interests of their nations. The EU, not being a nation itself, may not get that part and may have been feeling a little too invincible as a bloc of nations, but they have still basically pissed off most of their larger trading partners and it doesn’t stop there. Qatar is threatening to stop selling LNG over some corporate sustainability directives the EU passed in 2024, since the potential fines amount to 5% of their state energy corporation’s global revenue[1].

Personally I like the way Qatari’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi put it[2]:

> “If the case is that I lose 5% of my generated revenue by going to Europe, I will not go to Europe," Al-Kaabi reportedly said in reference to the associated penalties back in December 2024. "I’m not bluffing.”

Now you might be thinking, well who cares? It’s Qatar! Well Qatar also supplies about 12 to 14% of Europe’s LNG imports. Europe could get that gas from elsewhere, but elsewhere kinda includes either America or Russia.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/qatars-energy-minist...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2025/08/06/europe-is...

Russia is still an energy provider to Europe. Do we provide any security guarantees to Qatar or can protect the shipping lanes? We can not. It is controlled by the US, which is also a major supplier.

For every political squeeze EU can do, the US can squeeze 10x as hard.

ASML also has quite a lot of US suppliers. We are all tech dependent on each other, but China is working hard to fix that and the US also.

> One example: we get 10-12% of our LNG from Qatar.

Qatar is a pure American vassal state.

The US has power. Military, Financial, Cultural. The EU does not.

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Trump or no Trump, the US's ability to be Europe's security shield had to come to an end one day or another. Trump is more a symptom than a cause: the US has weakened and others have strengthened. As many are eager to point out, the game is already up. Pretending like there is a future here is pointless. America had best leave internal European civil wars like Russia-Ukraine to the locals and retreat to whatever borders she can defend.

NATO died when Europe decided to outsource defense wholesale to the US so that she could fund her retiree class, proudly advertising how she redistributes as much as possible to the aged while relying on America to defend her borders. The US could not bear that weight and now Europe must carry it on her own. Doubtless the French will riot in the streets as the retirement age rises so that France may sustain herself rather than live on someone else's dime. But if Europe wishes to be defended, then she must defend herself.

God helps those who help themselves.

Compared to supreme leader trump who just strategically fucked up decades of diplomatic relationships, with allies, in a few years?

Or compared to Supreme leader putin and his very successful strategic 3 days military operation?

Actually the Green deal is an attempt at that. Masked as a way to save the planet, its goal is to get rid of deep dependencies like gas oil etc, which we in Europe don't have sufficiently.

The main issue is the way the transition is happening, because I see China doing exactly what we should be doing: build coal, nuclear, etc. while you build tons of solar panels or windfarms.

The self inflicting pain forced by radical ideas is what is killing Europe. We have lost the pragmatism that made Europe move at a crazy speed after WW2.