The EU is preparing for Moscow to cut gas supplies entirely, while Gazprom announces that from tomorrow it will drastically cut supplies of Russian gas to 33 million cubic meters per day, compared to Nord Stream’s daily capacity of about 167 million cubic meters , the gas pipeline that brings natural gas from Siberia to Europe via Germany. Today, in an Extraordinary Council, the 27 EU energy ministers will go the last mile to reach a political agreement on the regulation which would impose a mandatory 15% reduction in gas consumption on an emergency and voluntary basis from August 1st to March 31st planned for next year. The expectation of broad support for the proposal after states have split over the past few days over the text presented by the EU Commission on July 21, with criticism on various aspects, from the reduction cap to the activation of the state of emergency.
The conflict of declarations
The Council decides by qualified majority (at least 15 countries in favour, representing at least 65% of the EU population), but the aim of the Czech Presidency, in the amended text it presented to the ambassadors to the EU yesterday (another negotiating document discussed last Friday) to achieve the broadest possible consensus in order to send a signal of unity among the member states towards Russia. Yesterday morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Moscow is not interested in a complete halt to gas supplies to European countries: Russia is a responsible gas supplier – he said – and regardless of what he says in the European Commission, in European capitals, in the United States, Russia has been and remains the country that largely guarantees Europe’s energy security. Then came the announcement by the state-controlled company Gazprom, which made clear what EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been repeating for a long time: Moscow is no longer a reliable supplier. President Putin warned that a second turbine to be repaired could lead to a further reduction in Nord Stream’s supply. But in reality, Moscow aims to increase tensions in the EU. Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck called it a treacherous game, for him Putin was trying to undermine the great support for Ukraine.
The compromise of the regulation
The compromise presented to the member states gives the Council the decision by a qualified majority to trigger the gas emergency on a proposal from the Commission or from at least 5 member states (instead of 3). The regulation would remain in force for one year instead of two. In addition, a number of exemptions from the 15% cap based on interconnectors and geographical location have been introduced: for the Baltic countries, which are still connected to the Russian electricity grid, for Cyprus, Malta and part of Greece, for Spain and Portugal, which again recognized the exception as in the original proposal. It remains important to cut the quota of 45 billion cubic meters of gas and actually release it for the countries most in need, starting with Germany. Italy would have achieved that the reduction is calculated on a quantity that excludes imports and industrial uses (for us this means that the threshold is lowered to around 8%) and that the gas price cap is mentioned in the text with reference to the European Council, which gave the Commission a mandate to examine it. Von der Leyen confirmed yesterday that the EU executive is considering it.