BEIJING, October 10. /TASS/. Influenced by the United States, the European Union has been pursuing a flawed policy course amid the Ukrainian conflict and will face a severe energy crisis and a number of other major economic problems in the coming winter, the Global Times reported on Monday.
"European countries are preparing to face a severe and tough winter as the energy crisis further escalate amid the worsening Russia-Ukraine crisis and the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines," reads the op-ed published on the newspaper’s front page. Meanwhile, "the US is trying to use high energy prices to further weaken Europe's economy."
Washington is seeking to force manufacturers leave the EU market, according to the Global Times. Experts interviewed by the Chinese newspaper said EU countries "need to consider carefully the future" of their relations with the US.
According to the Global Times, Europe can only ensure a sustainable peace and development of the continent if it keeps solidarity and sticks to independent policymaking. The newspaper quoted experts as saying that the EU should not bind too tightly with the United States, otherwise it won’t be sustainable.
Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that US energy companies were "using the war [in Ukraine] to get rich." "In the future, with the worsening of the Ukraine crisis, more and more manufacturing industries will flee Europe and move to Asia and America, and then the Europe's economy will be hollowed out," the expert warned. According to Wang, "now due to the governmental subsidies, the ordinary people's daily lives [in the EU] don't see major change, but in the long term, the high debts and the weakening national strength will eventually impact the people's livelihoods in the continent."
Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said that, facing geopolitical problems, the EU was not capable of solving those independently and had to rely on Washington, while the latter was getting less reliable, "for the US hegemony is declining." "This is why the EU is seeking more diversified energy supplies from Africa and the Middle East," Cui said.