A senior official at the European Commission – the equivalent of the EU’s Government – says the continent must accept that the two necessities of life – food and fuel – have been far too cheap for a generation and to save the planet we must all pay more. Diederik Samsom, Chief of Staff for Frans Timmermans, the Commission’s Executive Vice-President responsible for energy policy, made the comments at a recent meeting of Brussels policymakers. The Times has more.
This spring’s inflation figures for the eurozone are bleak: annual inflation is at more than 7%, and a 44% increase in energy costs is also driving up food prices. A double whammy of the invasion of Ukraine, leading to the phasing out of Russian fossil fuel imports, and Europe’s transition to carbon-free energy have hastened the huge price increases.
Higher energy costs, including a sixfold increase in the cost of gas as an agricultural input, have driven food prices even higher. And the war in Ukraine has disrupted markets in key agricultural commodities, such as wheat and cooking oil, causing knock-on effects all the way along supply chains.
In EU countries the cost of soft wheat has increased 64.6% since March last year and the price of rapeseed, a key oil seed, has risen 77.8%. There are now shortages of sunflower oil, of which 73% of global exports originate in Russia and Ukraine.
The European Commission, which sets key energy policies across the European Union, sees the higher bills as a long overdue and unavoidable reckoning with reality.
Diederik Samsom, Chief of Staff for Frans Timmermans, the Commission’s Executive Vice-President responsible for energy policy, warned that the previous low cost of living came at the expense of the environment and depended on imports of Russia’s fossil fuels.
Samsom admitted that “no one dares to say out loud” to voters that past living standards were unsustainable and that higher prices will be permanent.
“Yes, energy will be much more expensive as of now. Energy was way too cheap for the last 40 years,” he told a recent meeting of Brussels policymakers at the Bruegel think tank, urging governments to confront “taboos”.
“We have profited from it and created enormous wealth at the expense of planet Earth and, as we realise right now, at the expense of geopolitical imbalances [with dependency on Russia]. Both need to be repaired. In order to repair them we need to pay more for energy – and also for food. The two basic needs of life – food and energy – we have paid way too little for in the past 40 years.”
Mr. Samsom appears to earn upwards of £150,000 a year; his boss earns over £200,000 a year. They also have no electorate to face.
Worth reading in full.
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I’ve just got banned from the Telegraph comments for pointing out their disgraceful science reporting and pointing to articles like this one. They simply cannot allow the truth.
Keep it up Igor.
In truth I’m quite pleased in a way, because continuing to pay them money (albeit at a reduced rate due to previous threats to leave on my part anyway) has been running counter to my principles. I’ve unsubscribed of course.
I was banned on a number of occasions at the DT but they relented when I appealled to the moderators. They eventually brought in a one strike and you’re out policy which has prevented me from commenting since, they must run checks on IP addresses as I opened a new account using a different email address but was banned within a week for something innocuous.
If you want a Qatari model of free speech, look no further than the DT BTL comments policy.
The Guardian and the BBC are even worse than the DT.
I was banned for commenting “below the line” years and years ago.
The Guardian- check
The Times- check
Youtube comments- check
Disqus- Check
Daily Mail- check
Twitter (pre and post Elon)- check
BBC-check
Daily Telegraph-check
Why?
I have very successfully defeated BBC HYS moderating censors multiple times by targeting certain subjects in a particular way – proved their bias which they have tacitly acknowledged time after time. Like many here, I consider these MSM organs are self evidently very corrupt, lying woke far left WEF acolytes and my experiences don’t move that dial one millimetre .
I paid £24 for my DT subscription this year. I let my old subscription lapse when they wanted to make it over £100 pa and after about 6 weeks they discounted by over 75%. I keep it going so I can comment BtL and – hopefully – influence others and point them towards sources of information.
I tread a fine line; they’ve not banned me yet.
They banned me for railing against Bill Gates giving them a few million quid during Covid. It is a badge of honour to banned by this rag.
We all seem to be operating in an echo chamber.
We all know what is causing the excess deaths.
It is not until the general public and the main stream media start to wake up to reality that anything will be done.
We are making very slow progress on that front.
Excellent interview in TCW today with Andrew Bridgen, entitled: “The Vaccine Cover Up is Rapidly Unravelling.” It opens “The elephant in the room of excess deaths is trumpeting louder and is stepping on the toes of Big Pharma in Parliament.”
Unfortunately when Andrew stands up in Parliament to make a valuable speech all the other MPs walk out.
This is the level of wilful ignorance we are dealing with.
Great work Mr Chudov
Now I remember why I prefer SQL
Although I do agree with your hypothesis, I have one, simple point to make… I think the official vaccination rates are total BS. In many European countries, individuals are all too used to beating the system and cutting each other private deals and arrangements. I suspect a statistically significant number of jabs went down the sink. And we’ll never, ever know how many. There just isn’t the data.
It’s things like this which remind me of the main message in Friedrich Duerrenmatt’s Das Verpsrechen – some things will never be solved, however much you want and need to solve them, and regardless of how much effort you put into solving them…
But the bastards need hanging for everything they did which we know for sure they did, nevertheless.
Yes, I noticed that former Communist countries had low or negative excess mortality (fewer deaths than expected in plain English!). I would agree that their lower jab rate is due to a history of “beating the system” and overall suspicion of authority and is probably even lower. Sweden’s negative excess mortality rate suggests that a combination of lockdowns and jab adverse effects has caused the excess mortality we’ve seen. In countries with both lockdowns and high high jab rates we see higher excess mortality. Simplistic using one country’s example I know.
They really sucked up the ‘get jabbed to save granny’. in Portugal. 95% jabbed!
Salazar managed to create what is in my honest opinion a very childlike and impressionable population.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-insane-experiment-behind-the-covid-pandemic-and-disease-x-part-three/
Paula Jardine’s excellent expose of the C1984 Scamdemic continues. Here’s part 3.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-joy-of-making-unexpected-new-friends/
Liz Hodgkinson at TCW with a message for all
ScepticsRealists.That’s all great, and I for one believe firmly that correlation does equal causation in this case.
Trouble is, even though he’s probably right on the money on this one, you can’t really present a non-scientist’s evaluation of re-hashed statistics as evidence for the danger of mRNA vaccines.
If a covid vaccine zealot asks me where I got this info, and I go “Igor Chudov’s Substack page”, they’ll say “Well why then were the NHS recommending them to everyone”? The answer to this, of course, is a long story involving the relationship between regulators, Big Pharma and the health services, with no independent assessment of efficacy and safety of vaccines.
But it’s at this point in the the discussion you might as well be conversing with a peanut.
Has anyone any information about how long after vaccination the adverse effects west off, if at all.
We continue to focus on excess deaths, however it would be good to not loose sight of other side-effects.
How many have had their health altered by mRNA products?
Probably an impossible question to answer, but analysis of NHS data or private insurance data may give us some clues?
The best way would be to be tested for spike protein markers, both viral and mRNA induced, Troponin, D Dimer and Ig3/4 levels. Snag is the NHS GPs will not routinely do this – how ironic that this medical “cohort” banged the gong for PCR whilst some banged the pans but they refuse en bloc to pull back the curtain to reveal, at least in part, their collective complicity. I bet their PI insurers have said to these Medics to the effect: “Don’t do these tests as it might invite claims against you – if you do you are no longer covered”