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Markus Balser and Henrike Roßbach, Berlin
How dramatic is the situation in the country? Robert Habeck bends down briefly at the lectern in his ministry, disappears from the field of view of the cameras and pulls out a graphic of the levels in German gas storage tanks. All curves drop steeply – only the top one, the blue one, is outside the critical zone. However, it only takes 40 seconds for Habeck to explain that this curve of all things is ruled out “by logic and by law” because Germany should no longer be able to cooperate with its EU partners on the gas market in this scenario. “The situation is serious,” says the Economics Minister.