Sir, – Michael McDowell argues that if the European states must suffer an energy cut-off, it is a price worth paying to stop Putin's plan to subjugate their eastern flank and threaten their freedom ("Putin has overplayed his hand – but is the West bluffing?", Opinion & Analysis, April 8th). But the case is stronger than this, the future of European democracy and peace are at stake.
Suspending energy imports from Russia will certainly hit living standards in European countries, possibly leading to an overall fall of 5 per cent or more. Compare this to the predicted 40 per cent fall in Ukrainian GDP this year, the loss of tens of thousands of lives, a multiple of this injured or brutally assaulted and the destruction of the physical infrastructure which will take decades to restore.
There is already a hit to living standards arising from higher energy prices, and this will worsen considerably in the event of a ban on all energy imports from Russia. How the loss will impact different socioeconomic groups is something the political system can influence, but not the scale of the overall loss.
This is a reality we must live with and accept. Unless we want to condone, implicitly, the horrors already inflicted on Ukraine. And close our eyes to the danger that this nightmare scenario could extend, in time, to the rest of Europe. – Yours, etc,
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JOHN O’HAGAN,
Department of Economics,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.