German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has once again rejected calls to boycott Russian oil and gas, saying the cost to Germany’s economy would be too high. Scholz spoke Wednesday at the Bundestag, or German parliament.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “Yes, we will end this dependency as quickly as we possibly can, but to do that from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and the whole of Europe into a recession. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk.”

Germany gets about a third of the oil it consumes from Russia, and about half of its coal and natural gas. On Wednesday, activists with Greenpeace painted the slogans “Oil fuels war” and “Oil is war” on the side of a massive Russian tanker in the Baltic Sea delivering 100,000 tons of crude to a port in Rotterdam.

Manfred Santen: “Since the war started, over 230 tankers have left Russia with oil and oil products, meaning it’s almost business as usual, and it finances Putin’s war against Ukraine.”