The Writing Maven

  Cheap Russian gas is gone. The ECB is trapped. Permits take years. And the continent that invented the industrial revolution is now importing its own industrial future. Honestly, none of this surprises me. When I saw the UNCTAD and ECB warnings, it didn't feel like breaking news. It felt like a diagnosis that's been sitting on the table for two years while everyone argued about who pays the bill. Europe is getting squeezed from every direction at once. Energy prices that make no sense. Supply chains that still don't work right. Interest rates jacked up to fight an inflation that wasn't caused by people spending too much in the first place. It's a mess. And the worst part is, most of it was avoidable — or at least manageable — if anyone had moved faster. Energy is the core of it. For decades, Europe — especially Germany, Italy, big parts of Central Europe — built its entire industrial model on cheap Russian gas. That wasn't an accident. It was a choice. Chemica...