The war in Ukraine has already entered its third year and the EU has not stopped financing its supposed “enemy” while from Brussels the defense of democracy is invoked and its members are invited to rearm against the “greater threat to European security since World War II.”
Specifically, and despite the many European relative relaxations of “sanction”, the truth is that the EU bought 18% more gas from Putin in 2024, a growth promoted, mainly, by an increase in imports from Italy, Czech Republic and France, according to a recent study by the International Group of Energy Experts, Ember.
In fact, the European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jorgensen, has admitted that Russian gas purchases from the European Union since 2022 “They are equivalent to the price of 2,400 new f-35 fighters for the Kremlin.”
In the Putin client list there is no lack of “Spanish” companies that the combined cycle centrals in our country operate, and that Russia has not stopped injecting gas into the veins of the national energy system. Iberdrola, Naturgy, Endesa, Repsol, EDP increased Russian gas imports in 2024 by more than one hundred points (+103.6%), according to the informative bulletin of the Corporation of Strategic Reserves of Petroleum Products Organism Dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
Specifically, the Russia of Vladimir Putin sold to the energy companies that operate in Spain 32,832 gigawatts Natural gas (methane) time between January 1 and November 30, 2021, that is, in the first eleven months of that course (the war exploded in February 22). Well, the same Putin Russia (but now at war) has sold the energy companies that operate in Spain 66,875 Gigavatios hour between January 1 and November 30 of this year, 2024. That is, this year has arrived here, from Russia, more than double gas that arrived before the conflict broke out.
A threat to European security
As recognized from Brussels, in 2024 “the EU experienced a rebound in Russian gas imports”, a fact that highlights “the excessive dependence of the EU of Russian energy imports” something that constitutes “a threat to security”, which requires “more coordinated actions.”
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European commission: “The time has come for Europe to completely cut its energy ties with an unreliable supplier. And the energy that reaches our continent should not serve to pay a war of aggression against Ukraine. We owe our citizens, to our companies and our brave Ukrainian friends.”
Russian disconnection
Introduced in May 2022, the road map is based on the Plan REPowerEUwhich was the immediate response of the EU to deal with the consequences of the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The Plan confirmed the EU determination to eliminate Russian energy, at the same time accelerating the deployment of renewable energies and improving energy saving and energy efficiency.
The Repowereu road map establishes a gradual elimination of Russian oil, gas and nuclear energy from the EU markets, which will be carried out “in a coordinated and safe way” as we advance in our energy transition. The measures have been designed to preserve the security of the EU energy supply, at the same time limiting any impact on prices and markets.
Dan Jørgensen, Commissioner for Energy and Housing: “The message to Russia is clear: you will never blackmail our member states. Never again euros will never reach your war reserve. Your gas will be excluded. We will produce our own clean and affordable energy instead of importing expensive fossil fuels.”
Specifically, as regards gas, “new contracts with Russian gas suppliers (by gas pipeline and LNG) will be avoided, and existing cash contracts will be terminated from here to the end of 2025”. In this way, “the EU will have reduced the remaining supply of Russian gas already at the end of this year.” The Commission will also propose to “end all the remaining imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027”.
As regards nuclear energy, next month’s proposals will include measures on Russian imports of enriched uranium, as well as restrictions on new supply contracts signed jointly by the Euratom supply agency (AAE) for uranium, enriched uranium and other nuclear materials from Russia. An initiative of the European Radioisotopes Center is also planned to guarantee the supply of medical radioisotopes in the EU by increasing its own production.
Ecologists demand that Putin’s gas be changed to Trump’s
From Greenpeace they ask to go further with this issue of gas imports and directly demand that the European road map to abandon Russian gas “also reject Trump’s gas”, because the plan recommends the progressive elimination of imports of Russian energy and the search for “other suppliers of the same fuels.”
Therefore, Greenpeace considers that said roadmap must be extended to fossil fuels “of other suppliers”, especially those of “hostile” regimes to the EU “as the current United States government”, since, in its opinion, as it is raised, the measure “would further enclose the EU in the dependence of fossil fuel authoritarian and aggravated the climatic crisis and pollution. “
Thomas Gelin, head of Greenpeace for Climate and Energy in the EU: “Maintaining the flow of money to the Putin war for these fuels is scandalous, but the commission runs the risk of replacing a disastrous dependence on another: disconnecting from Putin gas and connecting to Trump’s.”
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