MSometimes things turn out worse than everyone thinks. That's often how it is in politics. But sometimes things turn out better than everyone thinks. That's often how it is in politics. It's just talked about less often.
Schwedt is such a case. A small town in Brandenburg on the border with Poland, far from the beaten path. But Schwedt has a large refinery, the PCK, which has been processing oil since the GDR era. A year ago, all of Germany, or at least that part of Germany that was worried about the consequences of the Russian war in Ukraine, looked at the refinery. One consequence was that Germany wanted to forego Russian oil. But Germany depended on it, the industry, but also the people who earn their money there.
The refinery in Schwedt represents this connection. 1200 people work there, which is a lot for a town with 35,000 inhabitants. Schwedt supplies large parts of eastern Germany with gasoline, heating oil, diesel and kerosene. Nine out of ten cars in Berlin and Brandenburg run on fuel from Schwedt. Almost twelve million tons of Russian oil came via the Druzhba pipeline every year. Druzhba means friendship in Russian. That was now over.
The oil had to be replaced as quickly as possible, that's what the federal government wanted. The “Berliner Zeitung” speculated darkly that there were no alternatives: “Are the gas stations in East Germany running out of gas?” Politicians also feared the worst. Some hoped that oil would continue to flow from Russia. That's what the district administrator, a CDU politician, said at the time. The motto was: It's better to continue as before than not to continue at all.
Litmus test for the entire country
At that time, discontent broke out in the Brandenburg Economic Committee. A left-wing MP complained that the federal government had made a decision and only afterwards realized, “oops”, there was still a refinery in the east, what should you do with it now? An AfD MP reported that he was in contact with employees at the refinery. The minutes of the meeting summarize his description: “The uncertainty is extremely high, and the lack of trust in the federal and state governments on the part of citizens in the last 48 hours can hardly be imagined.” CDU politician Jens Spahn warned that if necessary the start of the embargo would have to be postponed.
However, that would have been embarrassing for the federal government. Because it was true what they said in Schwedt a year and a half ago in the summer: that Schwedt was a litmus test for all of Germany. The town is also in focus because it will show whether the crisis can be overcome and a location can be maintained. This is important for many other locations in the country. A year ago it seemed as if the test was bad for the federal and state crisis managers. Schwedt threatened to become a symbol of a policy that puts morality above feasibility.
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