The European Union will look for more gas from countries including the US to replace Russia’s supply, and expand renewable energy faster to cut its overall dependence on fuel, said the European Union Energy Commissioner.
The EU has promised to get out of Russian fossil fuels in 2027 in response to the 2022 Moscow invasion to Ukraine. While the delivery of Russian pipe gas has plummeted, the EU increases Russian imports last year.
“Instead of using taxpayers, citizens’ money, to pay gas where revenue enters the Putin warfare, we need to ensure that we produce our own energy,” said the EU and Jorgensen Energy Commissioner in a joint media interview, referring to the President Russia Vladimir Putin.
Jorgensen said Brussels was preparing for changes to allow rules to accelerate building renewable energy. For industry and warming up at home where gas cannot be quickly replaced by electricity, he said the EU will increase efforts to find alternative supplies.
“And then my job is to ensure that it is cheap and not a Russian,” he said.
“There will still be gas needs, and there we must find other sources besides Russia, and that can also mean imports that are greater than the US”
European gas benchmark gas prices rose to the highest two years last week.
US President Donald Trump warned before serving in January the EU will face trade tariffs unless importing more oil and gas from the United States.
The European Commission does not directly buy gas, but has drawn plans to be involved with LNG suppliers and considering investing in LNG export infrastructure abroad to try to secure a long -term contract at a stable price, the draft document reported earlier this week by Reuters shows.
Under the EU law, European gas contracts must end in 2049 to harmonize with the target of climate block change for net zero emissions in 2050.
Jorgensen refused to comment on the leaky draft document, which is expected to be issued by the commission next week.
But he confirmed that the commission was working on a tighter control from the gas market to avoid speculative trade that caused the price surge, and would propose “financial instruments” next week designed to separate retail staff prices from high gas prices.
The EU electric market rules means that, regardless of the fast renewable energy expansion in Europe, gas prices continue to set the price of power paid by many European consumers.
Source: Reuters
