Status: 06/27/2022 1:06 p.m
By the beginning of November, the gas storage facilities in the EU member states should be at least 80 percent full. The energy ministers want to forestall a Russian delivery stop. Germany has already implemented the requirement.
The energy ministers of the EU countries have agreed on a target for the gas storage facilities in the European Union: they should be at least 80 percent full by November.
This is to ensure “that the gas storage capacities in the EU are filled up before the winter despite the disruptions on the gas market,” said the member states in Luxembourg. In mid-May, representatives of the states and the European Parliament had already informally agreed on this.
According to the specification, the national gas storage facilities in the EU countries should be at least 80 percent full by November 1 as a precaution, and 90 percent in the following winters. The EU wants to “jointly reach a level of 85 percent of the total underground gas storage capacity” in the European Union this year, the member states said.
Germany has already implemented the requirement
In recent months, the EU had feared that Russia could turn off the gas supply to the countries because of the Ukraine war and was therefore working on specifications for filling levels. In March, the EU Commission proposed the minimum fill levels.
In Germany, the legislator has already implemented the requirement: In the Federal Republic of Germany, gas storage facilities must be 80 percent full by October 1st and 90 percent by November 1st.
The requirement also provides for stricter control of gas storage operators by issuing licenses. Should an operator not be able to prove that he is not endangering the EU’s energy supply, the competent authorities could, in extreme cases, in future oblige “persons to sell their shares or rights” in the gas storage facility and withdraw any control over them.
In concrete terms, this is tantamount to expropriation. According to the agreement, the minimum filling levels in the EU should only be prescribed until the end of 2025. The Europeans hope to be largely independent of Russian gas supplies by then.