EU sanctions on Russia serve US interests at expense of Europeans: Irish MEP

A member of the European Parliament (MEP) has described the EU anti-Moscow sanctions as serving US interests and a sheer "madness" on behalf of the Europeans.

The European Union has been playing a very subservient role amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, imposing sanctions against Russia to the interests of the United States at the expense of the European people, Mick Wallace, an outspoken Irish MEP, said on Thursday.

Wallace said that the Americans never wanted the Europeans to buy the least expensive Russian gas so they could sell their own fracking gas supplies at four times more than the Russians.

The Irish MEP asserted that what the European businesses are going through now is "madness."   

"The US didn't want Europe buying gas from the Russians in the first place that for the last couple of years they tried to block the Nord Stream project. We're now buying filthy LNG gas, fracked gas from the Americans and at a much greater price. The industry in Germany is having to pay four times more for American LNG than the American industry pays back in America," Wallace said.

"So how is European business going to compete with American business if we're paying four times more for their LNG than the American companies? It's just absolute madness," he added.

EU Energy Crisis result of war in Ukraine with the worst yet to come

Skyrocketing energy prices have cost Europe nearly $1 trillion, considered the fallout of the war in Ukraine; it presages the beginning of the deepest crisis in decades.

Wallace urged the EU to take decisions that are in its best interests regarding Russian energy and gas.

The remarks come as the bloc has blindly followed the US in mounting fresh sanctions against Russia.

The MEP emphasized that the war exerted a dramatic impact on the price of energy and the overall cost of living in Europe.

"It's been a very disappointing year for the European Union.. We're making decisions that are good for America, good for NATO, but not good for the people of Europe. The sanctions have had a dramatic impact on the cost of living for the ordinary people of Europe. We've seen huge inflation. We've seen huge price rises. And the sanctions, in the last 12 months, I would say they've had more of an impact on the people of Europe than they had on Russia," he said.

The West's proxy war with Russia in Europe has made Washington the winner of the Ukraine crisis, experts say.

US biggest profiteer of Europe energy crisis: Experts

The European Union turns to the United States to deal with its worsening energy crisis, making the US the biggest profiteer, experts say.

The surging demand from Europe for US gas has turned the United States into the world's largest LNG exporter in the first half of 2022, with volumes up 12 percent from the second half of 2021, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

In the first 10 months of 2022, more than 60 percent of US LNG exports went to EU countries, making the EU the largest importer of US LNG exports.

At the same time, the United States' arms sales to NATO allies increased dramatically in 2022, as the war between Russia and Ukraine prompted the member states into purchasing more weapons.

By some estimates, military spending by the United States and its allies is growing at a level without precedent since the end of the Second World War.

Russia's war in Ukraine started in late February, with Moscow saying that it was aimed at defending the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk against persecution by Kiev.

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