Von der Leyen calls Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine “war crimes”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this Wednesday launched charges against the latest campaign of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy and health infrastructure that began last week, unequivocally calling them “war crimes”.
Speaking in the European Parliament explaining the Commission’s plans to alleviate the energy crisis, von der Leyen stated: “Targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure with the clear aim of depriving men, women and children of water, electricity and heating as winter approaches acts of pure terror. And that’s what we should call them.”
In his opinion, this Russian offensive campaign with missiles and drone bombs marks “a new chapter in an already very cruel war”. “The international order is clear,” he declared, these attacks “are war crimes.” He then reiterated that Europe would support Ukraine “for as long as necessary”.
The President of the European Executive then claimed that the Commission must protect Europeans from the “other war” unleashed in the energy sector by Russian President Vladimir Putin by invading Ukraine, and detailed some of Brussels’ plans to deal with the energy crisis and the high gas prices. Aware of the “concerns” of Europeans, “the best response to Putin’s blackmail is European solidarity and unity,” he said, before insisting on joint gas purchases rather than competition, which, as can be seen, is causing them to rise in prices August. “We have to be smarter,” he said. For this reason, Brussels proposes to jointly buy at least 15% of the gas consumed in the EU.
The second proposal is to share gas with the Central European countries most dependent on Russian supplies. However, Von der Leyen has argued that because of the highly integrated EU market, if one country is hit by an issue, it has “a big impact” on the others. For this reason, he has called for solidarity between states and considered it “absolutely crucial” that member countries share gas.
“These three measures: filling [las reservas de gas]save money [en el consumo de energía] and the split will have a positive impact on prices, but more needs to be done,” he stated, advocating gas price caps and an alternative reference market for gas prices as an alternative to the Dutch TTF, which only considers the price of natural gas passing by the gas pipeline.
On gas prices for electricity generation, he referred to the “Iberian model”, the derogation of Spain and Portugal, which has somewhat eased consumers’ electricity bills. “Really, it deserves to be looked at at a European level,” he said, but “there are still questions to be answered.”