European Commission presents plan to end Russian gas supply by end of 2027
The European Commission unveiled its plan on Tuesday, May 6, to definitively end Russian gas imports by the end of 2027, a difficult challenge given Europe's continued dependence on them.
The European executive proposes to act in two stages: banning new contracts and existing short-term (spot) contracts with Russian companies by the end of 2025, then stopping all gas imports from Russia two years later.
"Now is the time for Europe to completely sever its energy ties" with Vladimir Putin's Russia, declared Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, more than three years after the invasion of Ukraine. "We owe it to our citizens, our businesses, and our brave Ukrainian friends."
Postponed several times before its presentation to the European Parliament on Tuesday, this roadmap will now be submitted to the member states and the Parliament. Discussions are expected to be sensitive amid fears of a new surge in energy prices.
True, the share of Russian gas imports into the European Union has fallen from 45% in 2021 to 19% in 2024. But while the Union has made efforts to reduce its pipeline supplies, it has partly turned to liquefied natural gas (LNG), transported by ship, unloaded at ports, regasified, and then injected into the European gas network. LNG imports are thus reaching record levels.
And far behind the United States (45%), Russia occupies a central place in this area with 20% of EU imports in 2024, or 20 billion cubic meters out of the hundred billion imported. The step will be high, while the Commission promised in 2022 to do without Russian fuels "by 2027" .
American pressureOne of the major challenges will be the diversification of supplies. Several months ago, the EU discussed the possibility of further increasing its imports of American LNG. But trade tensions with Donald Trump's United States have muddied the waters.
It was not until May 1 that the European Commissioner for Trade, Maros Sefcovic, suggested again, in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, that the dispute with the Trump administration could be "resolved very quickly" through purchases of American LNG or agricultural products such as soybeans.
The American president himself put strong pressure on the Europeans at the beginning of April by demanding that they order massive amounts of energy from the United States, to the tune of 350 billion dollars (309 billion euros).
"The Commission risks replacing one disastrous dependency with another - turning off Putin's gas and turning on Trump's," warned the environmental organization Greenpeace, which advocates for energy savings and the development of renewables.
How will member states position themselves? Some, like Hungary, make no secret of their close ties to Moscow. Others are increasingly dependent on Russian LNG. France, for example, finds itself at the forefront with its five regasification terminals, including the one in Dunkirk. According to the Ieefa think tank, it increased its imports of Russian LNG by 81% between 2023 and 2024 and paid 2.68 billion euros to Russia.
For its part, TotalEnergies had already warned in the past against the risk of a price increase if Russian energy is banned.
Russian Ghost FleetBeyond liquefied gas, the European Commission has consistently highlighted all the efforts made to reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels since the invasion of Ukraine. An embargo on Russian oil imports was thus imposed in the EU at the end of 2022. "We have gone from one barrel of oil in five to one barrel in fifty," Ursula von der Leyen insisted in London at the end of April. With its new roadmap, Brussels is promising new action against the Russian ghost fleet, often aging oil tankers operated under foreign flags, accused of being used to circumvent Western sanctions.
Measures against Russian imports of enriched uranium are also being discussed for June. "Today, the European Union is sending a very clear message to Russia: we will never again allow Russia to use energy as a weapon against us," stressed European Commissioner Dan Jorgensen.
The World with AFP
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