Robert Habeck has to be patient for fourteen minutes. He’s sitting on the far end of the stage, with Larry Fink, head of Blackrock, the world’s largest and most powerful wealth manager, next to him. Those who sit on the very outside often have the last word. And whoever sits next to Larry Fink, even more so. After all, it is the really big stage in the conference center in Davos, not the small one, that cabinet colleague Lindner has to be content with.
So Habeck leans forward, focuses on his fellow discussants, ready to speak at any time. And finally it’s his turn, he too can give his opinion on the question of where the world economy is headed, where world trade is headed. “Do we need more global trade? Yes, absolutely,” says Habeck – but not at any price. In the past – especially in liberal Davos – there were often songs of praise for free trade. As a Green, he was always skeptical. “When we talk about trade, we always have to talk about sustainability,” he says. And you have to talk about common values. “It is impossible to have an open, liberal democracy without having a market-driven economy at the same time – and vice versa,” says Habeck. It is imperative to think about the question of values when it comes to who to trade with in the future and to what extent.
A statement that is a through ball for WEF President and panel moderator Børge Brende, even if he waits 20 more minutes before converting it. So has Europe traded with Russia too long and too intensively, keyword dependence on Russian gas, he asks? It is the moment when Robert Habeck becomes brutally honest. “It wasn’t Europe that was dependent on Russian gas. It was Germany,” he says. Looking back, it’s difficult to understand how that could have happened. But it happened. “Europe is paying the price for Germany’s dependence on Russian gas,” says Habeck.
But he also refers to what Germany has achieved in recent months. Gas storage 90 percent full in mid-January, three LNG terminals in just ten months: that is an enormous feat and an enormous achievement, especially when you look at how quickly such projects in Germany would otherwise be implemented, keyword Berlin Airport. And the current gas price also gives him hope “that we can avert the recession that Europe fears and that Germany also fears.”