In the short term, the community executive offers mainly for twenty-seven to diversify their sources of supply and to invest in new gas infrastructure. Brussels also wants to accelerate the rise of renewables on the old continent.
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The war in Ukraine forced Europeans to imagine a life without Russian energies, while 30 % of the gas and 28 % of the oil they consume come from Russia. Wednesday, May 18, the Commission presented its battle plan: rise in power of renewables, acceleration of energy savings, diversification of gas supply … In total, the community executive ensures that these measures, which will require 210 billion From euros in investments by 2027, will allow the European Union (EU) to reduce by two thirds its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons by the end of 2022 and to completely extract it “as soon as possible”.
Before the Russian aggression, Europeans, each jealous of their sovereignty in terms of energy, would never have imagined having this collective reflection. If some of them – notably the Balts or Poland – had already initiated a strategy in this direction, others, including Germany, did not plan to untie the links they had with Moscow.
The conflict has changed everything. Not only is it paradoxical to help kyiv on the one hand while continuing to finance Putin’s war on the other, but no one in the EU, not even the Hungary of Viktor Orban, yet close to Vladimir Putin , does not dispute the need to cut any bond of dependence with Russia. The twenty-seven have already decided to do without Russian coal by August. They negotiate the possibility of an embargo on oil but collide, for the moment, to the refusal of Budapest.
As for gas, it is not yet, at this stage, a question of taking sanctions against Moscow. But twenty-seven know this, the Kremlin can decide, overnight, to cut their tap of gas, as it did with Poland and Bulgaria, or electricity, as it has done with Finland. “We expect the Russians to exercise their blackmail at any time,” admits Eric Mamer, the spokesman for the Commission. It is therefore better to prepare, and quickly.
contacts in Norway, Qatar and Algeria
In the short term, the twenty-seven have no other solutions than to buy petroleum and gas elsewhere, to exploit existing nuclear power plants as much as possible, to reopen some and to put back into service coal mines that had been closed. In this context, the Commission has already announced that the United States was ready to increase its liquefied natural gas deliveries (LNG) by 15 billion cubic meters in 2022 (10 % of Russian gas sold in the EU per year) and 50 billion cubic meters by 2030. It multiplies contacts, in Norway, Qatar or even in Algeria, to find other sources of supply.
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