The European Union has set in 2027 as the deadline by which the 27 Member States, from the building to the coast, must eliminate all remaining Russian energy purchases, in particular the liquefied natural gas carriers (GNL) who continue to arrive at the Côtes du Bloc despite the brutal war in Ukraine.
The break will gradually take place. First, with the ban on new and short -term contracts by the end of 2025. In a second step, long -term contracts, which represent two thirds of Russian gas, will be interrupted by the end of 2027. Additional restrictions will also be introduced to repress the shadow fleet which will secretly carry Russian oil and the cessation of imports of Russian uranium.
Each Member State will be invited to write a national plan detailing how it intends to remove Russian gas, nuclear and oil from its energy mixture.
All measures are contained in a strategy Presented by the European Commission Tuesday afternoon. The roadmap, which must be expanded in legislative texts before entering into force, was initially expected in the first 100 days of the new commission, but was delayed several times in the midst of a deep uncertainty on the push of Donald Trump to launch negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
The resumption of Russian energy purchases has been launched as a possible condition for a future peace agreement. With its strategy, Brussels excludes this controversial idea and establishes the necessary guarantees to permanently leave the Russian fossil fuels in the past.
“Even if there was peace tomorrow, it would not be wise for us to become dependent on Russian fuel,” said Dan Jørgensen, European energy commissioner.
“First and foremost, (Vladimir) Putin has shown that he does not care about gas armaments. We should not put ourselves in a vulnerable position like that again. And secondly, we do not want to fill his war trunk and support his war economy because who knows which country will be the next.”
The consumption of Russian energy has been at the center of the political debate since the start of the large -scale invasion, when the EU was suddenly forced to count with its dependence of several billion euros in Moscow. In response, Brussels has approved unprecedented measures to reduce imports of Russian coal and maritime oil, but gas, a large source of income for the Kremlin, has remained obvious to sanctions.
Last year, the block bought 31.62 billion cubic meters (BCM) of Russian pipeline gas and 20.05 bcm of Russian LNG, representing 19% of total gas consumption. Meanwhile, Russian crude oil has always stolen through the Druzhba pipeline, which was exempt Sanctions due to Hungarian pressure.
In total, the EU spent around 23 billion euros on the Russian fossil fuels in 2024, exceeding military support provided to Ukraine. This imbalance has been a long -standing source of friction among the Member States, which, despite constant pleas of kyiv, has never managed to find a consensus to completely eliminate Russian energy.
Earlier this year, ten EU countries – the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden – have signed a joint letter requiring a complete prohibition of Russian gas, including LNG imports. “Russia's ability to maintain its war efforts is deeply linked to its energy income,” they wrote.
On the other hand, Hungary and Slovakia have closed the ranks to oppose sanctions, arguing that this would endanger their national economies and the competitiveness of the EU.
The two landlocked countries furiously reacted When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decided to terminate the contract with Gazprom and stop the transit of Russian gas across the territory of his country at the end of 2024. “We will not allow them to earn additional billions on our blood,” said Zelenskyy in December.
Budapest and Bratislava asked Brussels to intervene, but the commission refrained from criticizing Zelenskyy's decision, since it has helped to accelerate elimination.
The judgment left Turkstream, who crosses Turkey in the Balkans and Central Europe, as the only pipeline actively bringing Russian gas to the block. The circuits through the Nordstream and Yamal-Europe pipelines stopped during the first year of the war.
ADVERTISEMENT“The prohibitions which are part of the plan will be adopted with a qualified majority. Thus unlike the sanctions, where you need unanimity,” said Jørgensen.
“We expect all countries, even if they do not agree with the decision, are up to the law.”
A political headache
While Russian pipeline gas purchases have plunged down all time, ships carrying Russian LNGs always go into the block terminals to even higher volumes, without any obstacle, creating a political headache for Brussels.
According to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), imports from RUSS in 2024 increase 9% compared to the previous year. Almost 90% of these purchases arrived in France (7.7 BCM), Spain (5.7 BCM) and Belgium (5.1 BCM).
ADVERTISEMENT“Russia depends extremely on the EU market for its gas exports, providing 52% of its LNG export income,” CREA said in an April report.
The absence of restrictions has enabled European companies to freely sign contracts with Russian suppliers, some of which take place until 2040.
Within the framework of the commission plan, a ban on buying Russian gas will be sufficient for EU companies to declare force majeure – that is to say events or circumstances which exceed the control of signatories – and stand out from legal commitments.
“Consequently, they cannot be held responsible. This is the clear assessment of our legal services. And therefore, we also think that we have a very comforting message to companies that have these contracts,” said Jørgensen.
ADVERTISEMENTThe option, however, risks being challenged in court and can lead to heavy sanctions for Europeans. Russian contracts are generally governed under “taking or paying” conditions well defined, which means that buyers are obliged to take agreed deliveries or pay financial compensation for their refusal. According to Reuters, disputes between EU companies and Russian suppliers are already 18.5 billion euros.
The most test of the balls to invoke force majeure and defying legal proceedings would be the approval of sanctions at the EU level, explains Elisabetta Cornago, principal researcher at the Center for European Reform (CER), who admitted the Hungary and Slovakia posts.
“This new roadmap that the Commission highlights today recognizes that the difficulty but tries to find new paths to technically provide an elimination of imports from Russian fossil fuels, such as the supply of contracts to European companies,” Cornago told Euronews.
“It is not without risks, because an expensive arbitration could follow for such companies, but it is a way to follow and a way to point out that the EU is (finally) seriously to remove all imports of Russian fossil fuels.”
ADVERTISEMENTTuesday's presentation comes in the midst of commercial negotiations between the Commission and the White House. Donald Trump launched the idea of strengthening American manufacturing LNG sales to rebalance the surplus of goods with the block.
