On Tuesday, March 8, Brussels unveiled its plan to cut European imports of Russian gas by two-thirds by the end of the year and allow the European Union (EU) to do without Russian hydrocarbons “well before 2030.” The topic will be included in the agenda of the summit in Versailles on 10 and 11 March.
Read alsoArticle reserved for our subscribers War in Ukraine: how Europe can reduce its overdependence on gas from Russia
“It will be hard, incredibly hard,” admits Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the European Commission, “but it is possible. To achieve this goal, the institute proposes to the G27 to diversify their gas supplies – Moscow supplies them with 45% of their imports – and increase purchases of liquefied natural gas in countries other than Russia, such as the States, Qatar, Algeria or Norway. He also advocates that the EU pay more attention to biogas and hydrogen and accelerate their transition to renewable energy sources. But, as Paolo Gentiloni told Le Monde on March 8, in the short term “we have no choice” and some countries will have to make up for the drop in Russian gas with nuclear power or coal. Finally, the Commission calls for accelerated efforts to decarbonize buildings and industry.
Store as much as possible
In addition, the Commission wants Twenty-Seven to store as much gas as possible. By April, he must submit a bill that will oblige underground gas storage facilities to fill at least 90% of their capacity by October 1 of each year. For now, Europe claims it has enough oil to get through the winter, even under the worst-case scenario, but it won’t be able to face another shortage next winter.
In the near future, in order to mitigate the impact on the accounts of households and businesses, Brussels intends to expand the “toolbox” of measures (price regulation, direct assistance, tax incentives, VAT abolition, etc.) that states can take without violating the rules of the internal market. The European Commission will also allow them to tax energy companies’ profits from price spikes in order to redistribute them, but on the condition that “unnecessary market distortions are not created.”