Brussels presents its strategy to stop importing Russian gas in 2027 | International

Brussels

The European Union wants to close the Russian gas tap in 2027. Although the community bloc has been decreasing its exposure to Russian gas by gas pipeline since the beginning of the aggression to Ukraine, which has gone from 40% over the total in 2022 to 13% in what we have been, the imports of liquefied gas have been increasing until today 19% of the total supply.

Russia remains the second liquefied gas supplier to the community block. “We cannot depend energetically on a hostile state,” the president of the European Commission said two weeks ago to announce that on Tuesday its executive would present a “road map” to veto the Russian gas in 2027.

The Commission, explain community sources, will bet on two ways: the prohibition of new legal contracts and safeguards that allow European companies to terminate current contracts with Russia without suffering an economic penalty.

The battle against Russian energy has been slow and with several stones along the way. The first, the energy dependence with Russia. “If it had been easier, we would have done it three years ago,” the Energy Commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, said a few weeks ago. The second, Hungary’s refusal to include gas sanctions in the last sanctions package.

The EU has imposed sanctions on the shipments of Russian coal and maritime oil, but not gas due to the opposition of Slovakia and Hungary, which receive supplies by Russian gas pipelines and claim that changing other suppliers would raise energy prices.

With the increase in the supply of liquefied gas from Qatar or the United States, Brussels says it is prepared to close the Russian gas tap and is marked 2027 as a horizon for total disconnection. This Tuesday the community executive will explain its recipe so that the annulment of contracts does not expose European companies to millionaire penalties.