Chancellor Scholz appears to be the only person who can afford the luxury, Russia’s ex-President Medvedev joked
FILE PHOTO. Adriana Duduleanu / EyeEm via Getty Images
Given current gas prices and energy-saving restrictions in Germany, the chancellor appears to be the only one in the country who can take a decent shower, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has joked.
“And what would happen with the price by the end of the year? $3,000? $4,000? Any higher bets, gentlemen?” Medvedev added in a sarcastic post on social media on Monday.
The remark included a link to Medvedev’s late-March prediction that EU officials, including in the German government, were shooting themselves in the foot with their anti-Russian policies. Their actions were “the best way to leave Europe without gas,” he said at the time.
The German chancellor was asked last week by a school student how often he showered, to which he said “every day.” During the same meeting he said he considered himself a wealthy person, knowing how much ordinary Germans earned.
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Scholz’s approval rating has reached its lowest point since he took office last December, according to a poll published last week by Germany’s INSA research institute. Only 25% of the German public is satisfied with his performance as chancellor, while 62% of those polled expressed disapproval.
The price of natural gas in Europe surged to over $2,600 per thousand cubic meters last Friday after Russian energy giant Gazprom announced a three-day shutdown of the Nord Stream pipeline.
The route, which connects Russia directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea, has been operating at just 20% of capacity for weeks. Gazprom has blamed anti-Russian sanctions for disrupting the regular maintenance of the German-produced equipment used to pump the fuel. Berlin said it didn’t believe the explanation and accused Moscow of cutting flows for political reasons.
