Status: 08.03.2022 4:35 p.m
The EU Commission plans to cut Russian gas imports by two-thirds by the end of the year. The EU should be completely independent of Russian fossil fuels by “well before 2030”.
Because of the serious tensions with Russia, the EU wants to become independent of Russian gas as quickly as possible. The EU Commission presented a plan with measures to reduce Russian gas imports by two-thirds within a year. It is therefore a question of accelerating the expansion of renewable energies, developing new sources for gas supplies and reducing energy consumption.
Accelerate the switch to renewable energies
“It’s time we addressed our vulnerabilities and quickly became more independent in our energy choices,” said EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans. The war in Ukraine shows how urgent it is to switch to renewable energies. Implementation is the responsibility of individual governments.
More liquid natural gas from Qatar, USA and Egypt
In the case of a broader supply from alternative suppliers, the Commission is particularly focusing on liquefied natural gas (LNG). In the future, the EU could import more of this from countries such as Qatar, the USA and Egypt, according to the Brussels authority’s proposal.
To ensure fuller gas storage facilities in Europe, the Commission proposed a rule that gas storage facilities must be at least 90 percent full by October each year. The current level is around 30 percent. For this winter, however, the supply of the member states is secured.
Chancellor Scholz said on Monday that he saw no way of doing without Russian energy imports in the short term. “There is currently no other way of securing Europe’s supply of energy for heating, for mobility, for power supply and for industry.”
More than 40 percent of the gas imported into the EU comes from Russia; Germany in particular is dependent on Russian imports. According to estimates by the Commission, the EU could do without Russian gas altogether well before 2030.
However, it is feared that Russia could stop gas deliveries on its own in the short term. On Monday, Moscow openly threatened for the first time that it would stop supplying gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea.
Supply secured for the rest of the winter
The EU Commission again stressed that the EU is on the safe side for the rest of this winter, even in the event of a Russian gas supply freeze. All regions have access to more than one gas source and are therefore more resilient. In the coming winter, however, the situation would be different.