Bobko
18 Mar 2025
News / Building regional alliance to stabilize Eastern Europe. [236]
Actually it is not. In the Middle East only Iran has a lower birth rate. With a total fertility rate of 1.51, Turkey now makes fewer babies per capita than France, Bulgaria or Romania.
This is according to the Polish Centre for Eastern Studies: osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2024-08-07/turkey-a-looming-demographic-crisis
In big cities like Istanbul - Turks don't make babies at all.
Also, Tacitus is right - their economy is in the dumps. However, Erdogan has since been forced to appoint a normal central bank head, that has begun to implement orthodox policies aimed at reining in inflation and fx volatility. There was simply no more energy left in the Turkish economy, for him to continue his wild experiments with Erdonomics.
Still - Turkey faces massive problems with youth unemployment (on a Spanish/Italian scale) and stagnating incomes. The only people that do well in Turkey are exporters and people from the tourism sector. They benefit from a cheap lira, and the fact that their earnings are largely in Euro or USD.
So it may seem fantastic while visiting as a foreigner, but it is certainly not nearly as fun for the locals.
You pointed out Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as opponents of resuming energy imports, but you forgot to mention the main one. The United States.
By far the greatest beneficiary of the shutdown of Nord Stream I & II, and older pipelines - were the American producers of LNG, and operators of American LNG export terminals like Chenniere and Venture Global.
As much as Trump is in love with Putin, this is one the victories over Russia that he likes to tout. Biden did too.
Europe represents the deepest and most expensive gas market in the world. Before their access to Europe, American companies were struggling to sell their gas for a small fraction of the price they now sell it for to Europe. In some instances - the price difference is 10X between what they were getting and what they are earning now.
Resuming supplies from Russia means the market goes back to its old mix of 30-40% Russia, 20-30% Norway, and rest from places like Algeria and Azerbaijan. It means American terminals, sitting on the Gulf of Mexico, now have to ship freight to Asia - where prices are often worse than in Europe, and the journey much longer.
Trump got elected, in part, on the promise of ushering in an era of "American energy dominance" and "Drill, Baby Drill" as he says. Killing a bunch of American oil and gas companies, and leaving the gulf coast littered with shuttered terminals kind of conflicts with that idea.
I think if Germany starts importing gas through Nord Stream again, it will work for a few months, and then it will mysteriously explode again. And again nobody will be able to say who did it, or for what reason, and instead everyone will have strong amnesia.
The pace of growth there is staggering
Actually it is not. In the Middle East only Iran has a lower birth rate. With a total fertility rate of 1.51, Turkey now makes fewer babies per capita than France, Bulgaria or Romania.
This is according to the Polish Centre for Eastern Studies: osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2024-08-07/turkey-a-looming-demographic-crisis
In big cities like Istanbul - Turks don't make babies at all.
Also, Tacitus is right - their economy is in the dumps. However, Erdogan has since been forced to appoint a normal central bank head, that has begun to implement orthodox policies aimed at reining in inflation and fx volatility. There was simply no more energy left in the Turkish economy, for him to continue his wild experiments with Erdonomics.
Still - Turkey faces massive problems with youth unemployment (on a Spanish/Italian scale) and stagnating incomes. The only people that do well in Turkey are exporters and people from the tourism sector. They benefit from a cheap lira, and the fact that their earnings are largely in Euro or USD.
So it may seem fantastic while visiting as a foreigner, but it is certainly not nearly as fun for the locals.
There won't be a long-term boycott of Russian energy
You pointed out Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as opponents of resuming energy imports, but you forgot to mention the main one. The United States.
By far the greatest beneficiary of the shutdown of Nord Stream I & II, and older pipelines - were the American producers of LNG, and operators of American LNG export terminals like Chenniere and Venture Global.
As much as Trump is in love with Putin, this is one the victories over Russia that he likes to tout. Biden did too.
Europe represents the deepest and most expensive gas market in the world. Before their access to Europe, American companies were struggling to sell their gas for a small fraction of the price they now sell it for to Europe. In some instances - the price difference is 10X between what they were getting and what they are earning now.
Resuming supplies from Russia means the market goes back to its old mix of 30-40% Russia, 20-30% Norway, and rest from places like Algeria and Azerbaijan. It means American terminals, sitting on the Gulf of Mexico, now have to ship freight to Asia - where prices are often worse than in Europe, and the journey much longer.
Trump got elected, in part, on the promise of ushering in an era of "American energy dominance" and "Drill, Baby Drill" as he says. Killing a bunch of American oil and gas companies, and leaving the gulf coast littered with shuttered terminals kind of conflicts with that idea.
I think if Germany starts importing gas through Nord Stream again, it will work for a few months, and then it will mysteriously explode again. And again nobody will be able to say who did it, or for what reason, and instead everyone will have strong amnesia.
