“The European Union’s decision to replace Russian energy sources with American ones, in particular by increasing the purchase of liquefied gas from the United States, will not lead to the EU’s dependence on the United States.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Source: spokeswoman of the European Commission on energy issues, Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, answering questions from the correspondent of “European Truth”
Details: The EU is not afraid that increasing imports of American gas will lead to dependence on the USA.
Advertising:
“Importing more energy from the United States is part of our strategy to phase out energy imports from Russia, the legislation of which literally goes into effect tomorrow,” Itkonen said.
She said that the EU does this by “diversifying energy sources and spreading risks”.
“Since 2022, when Russia started the war in Ukraine, the United States has become an important source of gas imports to the European Union. And there is one thing that I want to make very clear: EU imports from the United States, American LNG, cannot be compared with the pre-war dependence we had on Russia,” the spokeswoman emphasized.
She recalled that before the war, Russia supplied about 45% of all gas imports to the EU.
“This was done through special pipelines that were controlled and owned by one state-owned company subject to government control. Second, Russia has often and repeatedly used energy carriers as a weapon over the past decades. Third, unlike pipeline gas, LNG is a global and liquid market, offering more diversification options for the European Union,” Anna-Kaisa explained.
“So it makes our dependence on LNG much more manageable compared to our dependence on pipeline gas imports… Our imports from the US, the LNG that we buy from the US, cannot be compared to where we were before 2022,” she added.
As “European Truth” reported, On February 3, the EU’s withdrawal from Russian gas becomes effective in 2027, the first contracts will be canceled from April 25, 2026.
February 2 Hungary filed a lawsuit at the Court of Justice of the European Union in order to challenge the REPowerEU Regulation, which prohibits the import of Russian gas into the EU.
Earlier Slovakia announced that it would go to court after Hungary due to the EU ban on the import of energy carriers from the Russian Federation.
Read more in the article: No chance for Russian gas: why the EU will not return to energy cooperation with the Russian Federation.