“By mid-May, we will come up with a proposal to phase out Russian gas, oil and coal by 2027, backed by the necessary national and European resources,” von der Leyen said after an emergency summit of EU leaders convened to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The European Union has pledged to diversify its energy supplies before, most notably in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Progress has been slow, in part because Germany, Europe’s biggest consumer of Russia’s energy, was reluctant to rock the boat with Moscow.
But President Vladimir Putin’s decision to order the invasion last month changed everything. Within days, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz destroyed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, a project co-financed by German companies that would greatly expand Russia’s ability to supply gas directly to Europe, bypassing Ukraine.
And earlier this week, von der Leyen and her officials outlined plans to reduce the EU’s gas imports from Russia this year by seeking alternative suppliers, accelerating the transition to renewables, reducing consumption through energy efficiency and extending the life of coal and nuclear energy. factories that would otherwise be closed.
EU climate chief Frans Timmermans said Tuesday that by the end of 2022, Europe will be able to replace 100 billion cubic meters of gas imported from Russia.
“That’s two-thirds of what we import from them,” he told reporters. “Two-thirds by the end of this year. It’s hard, damn hard, but it’s possible if we’re willing to go further and faster than we’ve done before,” he added.
The European Union depends on Russia for about 40% of its natural gas. Russia also supplies about 27% of oil imports and 46% of coal imports. Together, this trade brings Russia tens of billions of dollars a year.
EU leaders have made it clear this week that the bloc cannot yet join the United States in banning Russian oil because of the impact it will have on households and businesses already struggling with record high prices. The giant fertilizer company cut production in Europe this week due to record high natural gas prices.
But Europe knows it needs to act quickly to reduce Moscow’s ability to use energy as a weapon in the economic war unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday that Russia could stop gas supplies to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in response to Berlin’s blocking of the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.
Speaking alongside EU Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron after a summit in Versailles, near Paris, von der Leyen said the Commission would put forward a proposal requiring underground gas storage facilities to be 90% full by early October each year.
“This will be our insurance policy against supply disruptions,” she said.