Countries buying gas from Russia must pay in rubles. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to issue a directive requiring Gazprom to convert gas supply contracts with “enemy countries” into rubles. The definition refers to countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia because of the war with Ukraine. Delivering Russian goods to the EU and the US and receiving payments in dollars and euros “doesn’t make sense for us,” according to the Russian president, the Kommersant website reports.
also read
According to the news, the ruble has regained value on the Moscow stock exchange. Russia, Putin said, will continue to supply gas “based on the volumes and according to the pricing principles set out in the contracts.”
EUROPEAN UNION
The European Commission is preparing to set up an EU task force for joint purchasing of gas at EU level, as was done with antiCovid vaccines. By pooling member states’ purchasing power, the task force will facilitate gas purchases on the international market to speed up decoupling from Russian gas, on which the EU remains heavily dependent, particularly in some countries including Italy and Germany.
The task force would be supported by member states in a steering committee: a team of negotiators led by the Commission will negotiate with gas suppliers, looking ‘beyond’ natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG). For the Commission, the task force is “inspired by the experience of the Covid19 pandemic, in which Europewide action was “crucial to ensure an adequate supply of vaccines to European countries.
In 2020, the EU consumed 399.6 billion cubic meters of gas: the main consumer is Germany with 91.2 billion cubic meters, followed by Italy with 71.3 billion cubic meters, the Netherlands with 44, France with 39.5 and Spain with 32, 1.
EU STOCKS
Meanwhile, the European Commission has decided to lower the target for the minimum filling of gas stocks in the EU in 2022 from originally 90% by 1 October to 80% by 1 November to give Member States some “flexibility”. admit. , given the current “very high” gas prices, as European Commission VicePresident Valdis Dombrovskis explained at a press conference in Brussels.
“There has been some debate about the level of stockpiling he said two issues are at stake: we need to ensure some level of restocking ‘before winter’, but we need to recognize that we are in a situation where gas prices they are very high, so you also need flexibility to replenish stocks at affordable prices “However, there is nothing preventing States from going beyond the 80% foreseen in the legislative proposal”.
DRAGONS
“The European Council will also discuss the increase in energy prices. Gas and electricity prices have fallen again after peaking two weeks ago. The spot price of gas in the European market has halved today compared to the highs of around €200/MWh reached on March 8th. However, these are still very high prices compared to historical levels, more than five times the price of a year ago, said Prime Minister Mario Draghi today in a speech at the Chamber of Communications ahead of the European Council in Brussels starting tomorrow.
SCHOLZ
Chancellor Olaf Scholz sees no shortterm possibility of doing without energy supplies from Russia: Germany wants to end its longstanding dependency on oil, gas and coal from Russia, said Scholz in the general debate on the budget of the Chancellery. “But to do it overnight would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into recession,” he warned.
“Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk. Entire branches of industry would be at stake.” The chancellor added, according to Bild reports, that the sanctions imposed because of the Russian war of aggression are already hitting citizens hard and not just in the form of high fuel prices. Scholz then underlined the principle that “sanctions must not hit European states harder than the Russian leadership.