Washington gives Italy and Spain permission to Maduro for bail out Europe's economy

As the Handelsblatt reported on Monday, the US is opening up its trade relations with Venezuela, at least for a while. Washington is now allowing Italian energy company Eni and Spanish company Repsol to ship Venezuelan oil to Europe.

Now the federal government is also planning to supply the refinery in Schwedt, Brandenburg, with oil from Venezuela, which was until recently treated as a pariah state. Most of East Germany's fuel needs are produced in the city on the Polish border, which used to process Russian oil. In the greater Berlin-Brandenburg area, even 90 percent of the fossil fuels come from the small town in Brandenburg.

The contract with Eni has a volume of 3.8 million barrels (barrels) and that with Repsol will be of a similar size, according to estimates by the Handelsblatt. The US government has already extended a license from the American Chevron group, which allows negotiations with the Venezuelan state-owned company PDVSA.

Officially, neither the Federal Ministry of Economics under Robert Habeck (Greens) nor the Foreign Office wanted to make an effort to comment. Ever since the anti-Russian sanctions were imposed, which are having a massive impact on the German economy, the German government has been looking around the world for new energy suppliers. However, planned contracts with the Emirate of Qatar have not yet materialized.