Global Analysis from the European Perspective. Preparing for the world of tomorrow




Gefira #48 Western Europe to become a Third World subcontinent

Illegal immigration into Europe continues #alwaysandeverywhere

A chi apparterrà la Germania del futuro?

Il crollo demografico dell’Italia; Dal 2080 gli Italiani saranno una minoranza nel proprio paese

Every gift discarded, every device rejected

www.flickr.com / Gage Skidmore , CC BY-SA 2.0 DE

Such is the final symbolic act of the American state visit to Beijing (13-15 May 2026). Nothing gifted by the Chinese diplomatic counterparts was allowed on board Air Force One. The measure of mistrust just cannot be higher. The ostentatiousness of the act boggles the mind. The symbolic failure of the gesture cannot be overestimated.

Gifts may be poisonous. No doubt about that. Think about the cell phones that Palestinian leaders purchased, the cell phones that were tampered with by the Israeli secret services, the cell phones that were detonated, killing or maiming the users of those cell phones.

Think about the notorious infected blankets that the European conquerors of North America presented to the Indians. The purpose was to do away with the indigenous peoples in a surreptitious and efficient way. Or, for that matter, think about the alcohol generously sold to the same Indians for the purpose of weakening their health and paralysing their will.

Why, think about China itself, about the opium that was forcibly sold to the Chinese in the 19th century. Two protracted wars were waged over the right of the Europeans to bless the indigenous people with this good!

Think about the Trojan Horse. Legend or no legend, the principle was known and well established in antiquity. Gifts may be dangerous, and oftentimes they are.

Hence an interesting development of the meaning of the German word Gift, whose initial sense overlapped with that of the English word gift, but with time came to denote… poison!

Think about drug dealers who gift or give freely the first few doses of a drug to hook the person on the substance, to make him addictive.

Also the English language has an expression showcasing the troublesomeness of receiving gifts. The expression is to receive a white elephant, i.e. to get a gift that costs a lot to maintain but provides no usefulness (white elephants were considered sacred, hence one could not use them for any kind of work, but one, obviously, needed to feed them).

So, who knows, the Chinese may have concealed spying malware or whatever malicious things in their gifts, down to biological material. The American delegation acted verbatim on the old maxim: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, which in our context would be: Timeo Sinae et dona ferentes, meaning: I fear the Chinese, even those bearing gifts (The Aeneid, Book II).

How should that act on the part of the American delegation be construed? A message of mistrust of the Chinese? Real, palpable fear of being threatened by Chinese technology? How was that gesture perceived by the managers of the Middle Kingdom?

Almost a century back the Chinese were American allies in Washington’s fight against Japan. After the war came a split: Americans backed Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China’s nationalists, against Mao Zedong, the leader of China’s communists. Chiang Kai-shek lost to the communists and found refuge on the island of Taiwan. Americans recognized Taiwan as ‘China’ and tried to ignore mainland China in the hope of reversing the historical process. Nothing came out of it. Communist China, poor and backward as it was, showed no signs of disintegration, so much so as it was backed by the Soviet Union. But then the fate smiled at Americans: Nikita Khrushchev, the USSR’s leader, fell out with Mao Zedong, which later even culminated in border skirmishes. That was something that Americans had been waiting for. Washington reversed its political course and did its best to win Beijing over to its side against Moscow. Americans withdrew recognition for Taiwan and recognized mainland China as… China proper. Much later came the years of economic cooperation in that American businesses were for a large part outsourced to China. The fall of the Soviet Union – history’s another gift for the United States – seemed to seal the fate of the globe: the United States emerged as the only dominant power, Russia – the Soviet Union’s political heir – was assigned the role of the provider of resources, while the Middle Kingdom was supposed to happily accept the role of the world’s manufacturer.

Things may have stayed that way till this day but for America’s greed and arrogance. Gradual military encirclement of Russia in terms of expanding NATO and engineering unrest in the post-Soviet area (Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan) along with a simultaneous political assault against China as America’s most dangerous political and economic rival pushed Moscow and Beijing in their mutual embraces. Khrushchev’s political mistake has been corrected: Moscow and Beijing have begun to cooperate against the West, against the United States, though openly no such declaration has been issued.

The political sine wave for the United States could be traced something like this: from friendly China (Chiang Kai-shek) to unfriendly China (Mao Zedong), to friendly China again (Prime Minister Zhou Enlai), and again to a rather unfriendly China (Xi Jinping). The discarded gifts and the rejected devices merely illustrate the current state of affairs. 

How to rule without ruling

By © 1932 by Phaidon Verlag (Wien-Leipzig) ("Römische Geschichte", gekürzte Ausgabe (1932)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the stories about the famous Battle of Cannae, 2 August 2016 BC, during which Hannibal, the Carthaginian chief general, routed the Roman army goes something like this. The famous outflanking and the ensuing encirclement of the Roman legions was not so much the result of the orders that Hannibal gave at the time of the struggle, but his ingenious arrangement of his troops. The Phoenician general placed weaker units at the centre and stronger units at the flanks and told them to simply fight. The Romans pressed against Carthaginians (and their allies) and naturally they began to push back the weaker centre. As the hours would pass the Romans would wedge deeper and deeper into the Carthaginian ranks, forgetting about their flanks. Meanwhile, the stronger Carthaginian flanks stood their ground. Without Hannibal issuing a single order, the Roman legions slowly but surely found themselves in a cauldron. A couple of hours more and the cauldron was closed: the Romans were encircled and killed to the last man. Consider it carefully: the resounding victory did not demand that Hannibal keep constant watch on the battlefield, nor did it demand that he give orders now and again. The particular arrangement of his troops – the weak at the centre, the strong at the flanks – did all the job automatically as it were. Hannibal’s ingenuity consisted in and was confined to the few initial decisions. All the ensuing events were the result of those few initial orders. Orders given at the time when the troops were in the fray would have been ineffective if only because they would not have reached their addressees due to the chaos and noise.

Such ingenious initial decisions are the tools with which the managers of the world rule the world. Who are the managers of the world? Yes, the very rich people, individuals whose fortunes are as large as budgets of many a small or medium-size state. Due to such enormous amounts of money, they obviously can influence the world’s politics, and they can shape the minds of hundreds of millions of human beings. How do they do it? They apply Hannibal’s strategy, which means that they set proper conditions and then let the events take their course. They may rest assured that the course that the events will take will be very much to their liking. An example.

A group of the managers of the world wishes to make people like, desire and – consequently – be influenced by a certain kind of art, type of movies, novels or whatever because these will shape the human minds the way the managers of the world wish them to be shaped. What do the managers of the world do to achieve that goal? Do they propagate the type of art, movies or novels with which they want to reshape the human minds? Nay. That would be suspicious to many, and we know that human psychology is such that it rebels against anything that is forcibly imposed. So, what do the managers of the world do? Say, they want you to admire and desire a work of art that you do not admire or desire. They organize an auction and buy that (kind of) work of art at a very, very high price. The impact it makes is enormous. All of a sudden, rich individuals who would have been otherwise uninterested in that kind of works of art begin to have second thoughts. If a work of art has been purchased for millions, it must be worth it. The nouveau riche businessmen, who rather do not have their own artistic taste, will flock to buy similar works of art. The events will take their due course: people will be oriented towards that particular type of art.

The same is true of novels or movies. Novels and especially movies shape the minds of hundreds of millions of people. If the managers of the world want to control those minds, they need to feed them on books and films that put across the views and ideas, beliefs and ideologies that the managers of the world profess. How to have millions of individuals select the right books and movies? That’s where awards come into play. People just love reading the books and watching the films that have been awarded prizes. The bigger the prize, the more attractive the novel or the motion picture is. The power of prizes is twofold: they not only attract readers and viewers but also guide book and screen writers. All aspiring creators follow the many contests and competitions, and they learn which book or movie – or, to put it better – which content has been awarded. The aspiring authors will necessarily follow suit and create such content that suits the managers of the world or else they will never gain national or international recognition. The right content in turn (especially if repeated and replicated in hundreds of popular books and movies) will shape the minds of the millions.

Just as you cannot hope to make a political career without having somebody’s powerful financial support, so you won’t make a career as a writer or a filmmaker without somebody’s powerful financial support. It’s as simple as that.

The managers of the world are even better than Phoenician General Hannibal: while both Romans and Carthaginians knew who set the military conditions for the victorious battle, present-day men and women have no idea who rules over them. Some (majority or minority?) even tend to think that they are ruled by presidents or prime ministers, and some think that their ballot paper decides all. Yes, it does, but the choice that a voter makes has been conditioned for years by the arrangement of social, cultural, political and economic balances and checks which in turn have been and continue to be set by present-day anonymous Hannibals.  

 

The demographic crisis in China

The birth rate in China has reached a record low. The economy is already feeling the demographic pressure. Experts point out that this could lead to a significant slowdown and even a decline.

For decades, the Middle Kingdom was regarded as the world’s factory. The vast pool of cheap labour, low production costs and ease of transporting goods led to a situation where Western companies massively relocated their production lines to the country. Beijing benefited from this situation as GDP grew rapidly. A symbol of the developing nation was the massive investment in infrastructure, which aroused both admiration and envy in the West. It seemed as though nothing could stop the Chinese dragon.

Meanwhile, although the economy continues to grow at a pace that is unattainable for most Western countries, it faces a serious problem that could significantly weaken it. Birth rates are at an all-time low and, unless the situation changes radically, the demographic crisis will lead to rising labour costs and prices for manufactured goods.

In 2023, China lost its title as the world’s most populous country to India. In 2025, Beijing recorded its fastest annual population decline since the great famine of 1960, which took place during Mao Zedong’s rule. Falling birth rates and rising mortality rates have reduced the country’s population by 3.39 million. In 2023, the birth rate fell to 0.99, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This means that there must be 2.1 children per woman for the country’s population to remain stable. In practice, this means that one in three women must give birth to at least three children.

According to statistics, the number of people of working age in China (aged 16–59) has been declining over the years. In 2025, people in this group accounted for around 60.6 per cent of the total population, whereas ten years ago this percentage stood at 70 per cent. The demographic situation in China is exacerbated by migration, as more and more citizens are leaving the country. This unfavourable trend, as the analysis shows, could significantly weaken economic growth in the long term and dash Beijing’s hopes of overtaking the US.

One-Child Policy

Many experts point out that the current demographic crisis is, to a certain extent, the result of the ‘one-child policy’ that has been in place for decades. Since 1949, the Chinese population has grown rapidly. This led to food shortages and a housing crisis. For this reason, the government introduced the policy, which remained in force from 1979 to 2016. Children born as the second or subsequent child in the family were denied a hukou, i.e. an official registration that grants access to social services and other benefits. Families with an “excessive” number of children were also persecuted by the state apparatus and fined. As a result of the one-child policy, sons were favoured in most Chinese families. For this reason, women were forced to terminate their pregnancies when it became clear they were carrying a girl. This led to a gender imbalance. Although the ratio has stabilised in recent years at around 104 boys for every 100 girls (by way of comparison: in 2000, there were 118 male births for every 100 female births), there is still a shortage of women of childbearing age in China.

Beijing is now attempting to reverse this unfavourable trend. In 2025, China’s first national childcare subsidy scheme came into force. Every family receives 3,600 yuan, or approximately 503 US dollars, per year from the state for each child aged up to three. A decision was also made to raise the retirement age. However, it remains to be seen what the results of these changes will be. Another decision designed to encourage the Chinese to start a family was a change in the law allowing them to marry anywhere in the country rather than being restricted to their place of residence. The initial results appear promising: in the third quarter of 2025, the number of marriages rose by 22.5 per cent. From 1 January 2026, Beijing has also removed contraceptive pills from the list of tax-exempt goods and services. The government is also calling for a reduction in the number of ‘medically unnecessary’ abortions. It should be noted, however, that after many years of practising forced abortions, Chinese society is currently the most tolerant in the world when it comes to this procedure.

One of the most significant factors driving this demographic decline, which is affecting the economy, is the loss of productivity. According to recent forecasts, the proportion of the Chinese population aged between 16 and 64 is set to fall from 69.33 per cent in 2024 to 59.14 per cent in 2050. Unless this can be offset by technological innovation, stagnation in the Chinese economy appears inevitable.

Another negative factor is the weakening of domestic demand. Young people and middle-aged people are the two groups with the highest levels of consumption. The smaller their numbers, the lower domestic demand. The decline in the birth rate leads to a situation described as ‘still poor and already old’. In this scenario, China could fall into a ‘middle-income trap’, which refers to a situation where a country that has reached a middle income (measured by GDP per capita) is unable to effectively transform and modernise its economy (for example, due to a lack of innovation, stagnant productivity or institutional rigidity), leading to long-term economic stagnation and making it impossible to advance unhindered into the ranks of high-income countries. According to the World Bank, China’s gross per capita income in 2023 stood at US$13,390, placing China among the group of middle-income countries. If the demographic crisis persists, it will be difficult for China to rise to the ranks of the wealthiest nations.

 

Spirit is running low

 The fuel shortage is becoming increasingly serious. Lufthansa has already cancelled 20,000 flights. Air France has increased prices for economy class tickets by 50 euros per return journey, and the Dutch airline KLM has suspended more than 160 flights. At the same time, the International Energy Agency has announced that Europe will only have enough aircraft fuel reserves to last six weeks. However, the problem is already affecting industries across the globe. All major airlines are currently making massive cuts, particularly Turkish Airlines, which has cancelled nearly 20 routes. There are already companies that simply haven’t been able to cope with the situation. One such company is the US carrier Spirit Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy a few days ago. Although the name of this carrier may mean little to many readers, it is worth looking at the figures. Last year, the company operated more than 300,000 flights, carried 30 million passengers and held a 3.5% market share among US airlines. It is therefore not a small airline, but a national giant with more than 17,000 employees.

If we break down the cost of a typical passenger flight into its main categories, we can see that airlines are heavily dependent on the price of aviation fuel. On average, this accounts for 30% of the total cost.

And that is why Europe finds itself in a particularly difficult situation. This is because up to 70% of the crude oil that is subsequently processed into Jet A-1 aviation fuel comes from the Gulf region. This primarily includes Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. This makes the situation very dangerous, as any further blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will exacerbate these problems on a daily basis. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the availability of aviation fuel affects not only passenger traffic but also freight transport, which in practice is the first to feel the impact of disruptions. This is because, unlike passenger transport, where part of the costs can be passed on to customers gradually, any change in fuel prices for cargo is almost immediately reflected in the freight rates for every kilogram of cargo.

So here’s a handy tip: if you’re planning to fly on holiday, book a package with a price guarantee, as travel agencies such as TUI or DERTOUR are entitled to charge us a so-called fuel surcharge. These are additional costs, in accordance with the rules, which they can impose on the customer 20 days before departure if travel costs rise significantly.

The Italian historical sample

Where is Italy and where is Russia?

Worlds apart.

If you glance at the map of present-day Europe, you’ll see a number of countries separating Italy from Russia. They include (travelling from Italy to Russia) Austria, Slovakia, and Ukraine or (taking a more northerly route) Austria, Czechia, Poland, and Belarus, or (taking a more southerly route) Slovenia, Hungary, and Ukraine. Quite a journey. What bone to pick can Italy and Russia have? What cause of conflict could there ever have been between Rome and Moscow?

And yet, within less than a century and a half, Italian troops fought against Russian troops, and there were many Italian casualties, many corpses covering Russian soil, and many cripples coming back to Italy.

Italy has sent its troops against Russia three times. First, during the time of Napoleonic wars. Some readers may tend to think that when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia (1812), he led the French troops alone. No. He led almost the whole of Europe against the tsar, and those troops included lots of Italians. The men accustomed to Italy’s warm climate suffered frostbite and death somewhere between Moscow and Smolensk.

Then came the Crimean War of 1853-1856. It was the second time that Italy (to be precise, the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont) sent its troops against Russia. That was how the Italians most likely wanted to liberate their country from… well, from what?

Then came the war of the Third Reich against the Soviet Union of 1941-1945. It was the third time that Italy sent its troops against Russia to support Germany. Again, Italian troopers experienced frostbite and death, far away on the Volga.

Three consecutive times Italians (or rather their governments) let Italian blood flow copiously far, far away from their home country for God knows what purpose.  

Since Napoleon and Hitler lost the war to Russians, neither could Italians gain anything from their participation in them. While the Crimean War was successful for the Anglo-French coalition, Italians as their allies, could gain something from it. Italy’s international stance somewhat increased. Also, Italy’s alliance with France led to a later Franco-Italian war against Austria (1859), the country that stood in the way of Italian unification. Ok, that was a gain, but still the question rankles the mind: why fight against Russia when Austria happens to be your opponent?

Strange are the intricacies of history, are they not?

Italy’s historical experience shows that twice the blood sacrifice was made in vain, once it brought some dividend: the unification of Italy brought about by the victorious war of the Franco-Italian coalition against Austria, the main hindrance to the said unification. France’s help was earned by Italy’s participation in the Crimean War, where France had its vested interests.

What hopes of gain do the European countries cherish while getting involved (again and again across the recent centuries) in the conflict against Russia? What “Austria” do they have in their crosshairs? Whose alliance and consequently whose political and military aid do they want to earn? 

May 2026 – a look at some countries

USA

Trump’s greatest achievement is that he kills or kidnaps presidents. If he merely killed or kidnapped presidents, that would somehow be fair in the world of gangsters. But the fact that he kills primary school girls as collateral damage, causes inflation, lowers people’s standard of living across the globe through the energy crisis, and stubbornly sticks to his ideas is, to put it mildly, a sign of a penchant for dictatorship and the mindset that the best course of action is to turn everything upside down, without a second thought.

And so a void is emerging in the USA, because if the Democrats come to power again, America will once more be destroyed socially and spiritually, ethnic replacement will continue, and fentanyl will be made ever more popular. The Dems (read: the demons) will resume their gender and climate change nonsense, will incite hostility towards Russia, and so on and so forth. The void is emerging because people have no sensible candidate to vote for. I keep asking myself: how is it possible that such a great nation can produce something entirely new? OK, the big tech firms, AI and their achievements have been breathtaking, but Europeans, Asians, South Americans and, above all, North Americans are waiting for breathtaking new leadership in Washington.

UAE

The United Arab Emirates is leaving OPEC because:

  • their so-called friends, such as Saudi Arabia, did not come to their aid during the Iranian attacks;
  • they have the largest oil production capacities in the Persian Gulf and want to exploit them as quickly as possible before they run out of oil. They want to sell it now at the highest possible price, and today’s price levels of over $100 a barrel represent an opportunity for them to hoard money in a stagnant global economy.
  • they follow Trump’s lead: away from multilateralism. Participation in international alliances and cooperation is pointless. This may well be the start of a potential avalanche of withdrawals: the US from NATO, Eastern European countries from the EU, and so on.

Hungary

Peter Magyar’s victory delighted the Brussels elite, but they don’t understand people, and Magyar will disappoint them, because:

  • Magyar is not a pro-Ukrainian leader. Like Orbán, he opposes direct military support and the dispatch of weapons from Hungary. Furthermore, he is strongly opposed to a fast-track route for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
  • Likewise, the new Prime Minister supports the strict protection of Hungary’s borders and firmly rejects any mechanism for the compulsory resettlement of migrants within the EU.
  • The same applies to social policy, where pensions are not being cut in 2013 and 2014. Hungary’s budget deficit is therefore growing ever larger.
  • Although Magyar has expressed his desire to gradually move away from Russian oil, he is continuing his predecessor’s policy on nuclear energy. The new government has stated that it will not halt the controversial expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, which is being carried out in close cooperation with the Russian state-owned giant Rosatom. The key to the issue of energy resources from Russia seems to lie in these words from Magyar: “Russia will be here, and Hungary will be here. We will try to diversify, but that does not mean we want to part ways.” Everything suggests that the new Hungarian Prime Minister is, in fact, a ‘light version’ of Viktor Orbán, which may seem surprising at first glance, but when a country is so heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, the room for manoeuvre is truly limited.

Israel

The country under Zionist rule is waging a merciless war against other religions. The Zionists want to reach the Euphrates and, who knows, perhaps establish a thousand-year empire. Their targets are not only Islamists, whether Sunni or Shia, but also Christians. The demoralisation of Israeli soldiers has reached such a point that they are destroying and burning down entire villages. Recently, everyone was shocked by a photo of an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon destroying a statue of Christ with a heavy hammer. 

Source: X

The hatred and the scale of Israel’s attacks on Iran mean that Tel Aviv is already running short of air defence missiles. It seems that the Israelis are overplaying their hand and that this could end badly for them.

Viktor Orbán out – Rumen Radev in

Brussels may have ousted Viktor Orbán from office in Hungary – Brussels bureaucrats may have successfully controlled the elections in Romania and Moldova – and yet they are confronting yet another challenge from one of the lesser EU countries: from Bulgaria.

Bulgaria is estimated to be one of the poorest EU countries. It accessed the Union in 2007, amid high hopes of a betterment of social and economic life. The social mood was engineered – just like in every country about to join the Union – through the mass media that managed to inculcate into the minds of the Bulgarians that there is no salvation beyond the European Union. The majority of Bulgarians – the gullible majority – believed and so the word became flesh: since 2007 Bulgaria is an EU member state.

Why do we call people voting in favour of joining the European Union gullible? Simply because people throughout the ages have always been lured into supporting now fascism, now communism, now the left, now the right only to later regret it bitterly. Biologically grown-up people – psychologically immature – always fall prey to promises. So did the people of Bulgaria. They had thought that once their country became an EU member, things could only be better. They woke up another day, and they found out that the cuckoo’s land was nowhere in sight while Bulgarian industry was done away with and a million of citizens had gradually disappeared – left for Western Europe. The same phenomenon that we have witnessed in the Baltic States. From the almost 8 (eight) million people in 2001 Bulgaria is now down to 6.5 (six point five)! (But never mind: the European Union will replenish those Bulgarians with Bangladeshis for the purpose of which Brussels has just [20 April, 2026] signed the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Dhaka).

Even though Bulgarian economy did not fare well, the ruling class managed to make Bulgaria accept the euro, thus depriving the country of the remnants of its sovereignty. There were violent protests but to no avail. The ruling class was obliged (bribed?) to implement the European Union’s plan for their country and so they readily executed the plan.

Yet, just like once in Hungary and nowadays in Slovakia (Robert Fico), there emerged resistance to Brussels and the Bulgarian resistance had its name and face: Rumen Radev.

Rumen Radev is an interesting personality. Trained as a military pilot (he flew MiG 29), risen to the rank of a general towards his military career, a Christian Orthodox believer with leftist or socialist political and economic views, he successfully campaigned to be elected Bulgaria’s president, which office he held for almost ten years (2017-2026). Seeing his fatherland in economic and social distress, Rumen Radev became head of the Progressive Bulgaria (Прогресивна България) party, resigned from his presidential post and led his party to a landslide victory in the parliamentary election in April this year, winning 131 seats out of 240.

Rumen Radev is not the politician that Brussels would be glad of. Just like Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán (and most likely also Peter Magyar, Orbán’s successor) Rumen Radev is against the provision of support for Ukraine in the latter’s war with Russia; he wants to maintain pragmatic relations with Moscow, he is a vocal critic of the EU policies, especially its craze for green economy, and – to top it all – he was against the introduction of the euro.

As it is, the new members of the Union are increasingly anti-Union, be it Slovakia or Bulgaria, be it Hungary or Poland. Eastern Europeans are growing ever more disappointed with the Union. They are very often heard to say that the current Union is not the Union they wanted to be a part of. Well, it is good that Eastern Europeans are slowly opening their eyes to reality, but they should have known better years back when they were enticed and tempted to fling themselves into Brussels’ monstrous embrace. Life teaches us that all trouble routinely begins with the acceptance of the belief in sweet promises of a bright future. When will humanity eventually grow up to this realisation?

 

The paradoxes of green energy

Energy is a commodity traded on the markets. This happens every day, at every moment. If the price of electricity falls, the electricity producer stops feeding his electricity into the grid. However, producers usually have no choice, as wind turbines keep turning and solar panels operate automatically. Energy storage systems are expensive and currently have barely enough capacity to store surplus electricity for hours or days when demand is high.

The more photovoltaic cells feed into the grid, the more frequently this problem arises: too much energy is generated precisely when everyone is producing the most. On sunny days, particularly at midday, there is more electricity than the system can consume. The more the sun shines, the more electricity flows into the grid at the same time – and the more frequently the price drops to zero or below. In extreme cases, the energy producer has to pay extra just to get someone to take the electricity off their hands. The following chart shows how the percentage of hours with negative electricity prices is rising in Europe and individual regions – and in which countries the biggest increases were recorded in 2025.

A negative electricity price is not a gift to the recipient. It is a signal that the system has been ‘overwhelmed’ by the surplus. Photovoltaic operators therefore sell electricity at a lower price relative to the average market value, which is not reflected in the final price paid by the end consumer. Why? Because there are too few energy storage operators willing to buy the electricity for free or at a premium and sell it at peak prices in the evening. Whilst the number of electricity storage facilities is rising steadily, the electricity grid is not being expanded to keep pace with the rapid growth of solar, wind and storage. As a result, on sunny days, photovoltaic plants and wind farms are being shut down more frequently because it is not possible to absorb the electricity. According to reports, 8.5% of onshore wind production was curtailed in the United Kingdom in 2024. In Germany, wind curtailment (onshore and offshore) has been above 5% since 2022, and solar curtailment rose to 2% in 2024. In China, this rose to 4.1% for wind and 3.2% for solar energy in 2024; preliminary figures for 2025 suggest over 5% for both, according to the IEA.

A modern 100-megawatt storage facility requires around 0.5 to 1 hectare of land. How much farmland would be needed for the massive offshore projects involving terawatt-scale wind farms currently being built in the Baltic Sea (for example, in Poland)? How much lithium and other metals – mined in the developing world in ways that are far from environmentally friendly – are required for these large battery energy storage systems (BESS)? Is that sustainable? Really?

I don’t think so. But it is politically correct, because it creates the illusion that we are becoming less dependent on fossil (read: Russian, Putin-controlled) raw materials.

 

 

 

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