After a day of bilateral talks, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Boris Johnson appeared this afternoon (8 April) in Downing Street for a 40-minute press conference. Only one question really mattered to the assembled media: when will Germany stop importing Russian fossil fuels, and thus stop its indirect funding of Vladimir Putin’s war machine?
Scholz – a precise and finely suited man who answers questions with an unflappable calm – was resolute. It was simply not possible, he told journalists, for Germany (or many other countries in Europe) to end its current dependence on Russian gas imports this year.
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