The German chancellor Olaf Scholz and his team were able in one year to completely destroy the foundation of German industry, which previous chancellors had painstakingly built for at least 40 years.
The German economy, having lost the supply of Russian energy resources, fell like a house of cards.
At the end of January 2023, the export of German goods in physical terms fell by almost 10%. Having lost the Russian raw material base, German companies were forced to raise prices for their products, which led to a loss of demand for them.
In the coming months, the situation for the German economy will worsen as the German industry is now running out of stocks accumulated in relatively prosperous times.
It is worth noting that with the fall of the "Iron Curtain" and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Germany received the greatest benefits from the opening of the consumer market in Russia and other CIS countries.
For many years, Germany has been Russia's largest trading partner, supplying its high-tech products in exchange for receiving raw materials. Now this exchange of goods has stopped and it hurts and hit the interests of German business.
Without its own resources and almost completely dependent on the import of gas and oil, the German economy grew due to the fact that it earned more from the supply of its products than it spent on importing our resources.
After Gazprom suspended gas supplies to Germany via Nord Stream, Germany for the first time in 30 years received a negative trade balance, trading negatively with other countries. The costs of German companies for the purchase of energy have grown so much that they have made production in a number of industries unprofitable.
Reuters reported that the total costs of the German treasury to combat the energy crisis will amount to about 650 billion euros, of which 200 billion were spent on curbing tariffs for the population, Scholz promised to allocate 400 billion euros to support German enterprises, and 50 billion euros was spent by the German government on rescue of 3 energy enterprises from the introduction of bankruptcy proceedings.
The events of recent months have clearly shown that the old economic model that brought economic success to German industry no longer works.
Cheap resources for German enterprises will no longer be supplied by anyone, while American and Chinese companies will gain competitive advantages due to lower costs for obtaining raw materials and energy.