Tariffs on Russian energy are a smart way to hobble Vladimir Putin

THE INDUSTRIALMEPEU outskirts of Lubmin, a town on the windswept Baltic coast of what was once East Germany, feature in no tourist guide. Nor is the port of Rotterdam, the grittiest part of a city already struggling for charm, much of an attraction. Certainly neither has the appeal of Notre Dame or Venice, as Luis Garicano, an , economics professor and recent day-tripper to both can attest. Yet few places could help a vacationer to Europe better make sense of what is actually happening there today. In the Dutch port, ships from Russia discreetly unload lakes of crude oil each worth up to $80m, to be processed in European refineries. Even further from the public gaze, the Nord Stream pipeline makes landfall at Lubmin, pumping Siberian gas for which customers in Germany and beyond send back over €160m ($174m) every day. This is the dark economic underbelly of Europe, a continent that congratulates itself on aiding Ukraine while having paid nearly €40bn for Russian energy since the war started eight weeks ago.Banners in demonstrations from Paris to Prague have advocated simply shutting off the pipeline and turning away tankers carrying Russian crude. Yet wave upon wave of European sanctions have all but ignored oil and gas, even as drastic measures targeting other bits of the Russian economy have been adopted. Politicians wish they could stop payments to the Kremlin’s coffers; Germany’s have prevented the opening of a new pipeline, a twin to Nord Stream. At the same time they worry that going cold turkey on Russian gas might result in cold citizens come winter. Voters are already feeling the pinch of high heating and petrol bills. Firms are struggling, too, not least in Germany where reliance on Russian energy is acute. Estimates of how much an embargo on energy imports from the east would harm Europe’s economy vary wildly, but are high enough to derail consensus within the beyond mulling partial restrictions on oil imports in future.