Ten EU countries call for ban on Russian gas imports – Bloomberg
www.pravda.com.ua
Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:55:12 +0200
A group of 10 European Union countries is calling to toughen sanctions against Russia by imposing new restrictions on natural gas and strengthening control over compliance with the established oil price cap.
Source Bloomberg Sweden, Ireland, Poland and the three Baltic countries have joined this initiative.
They propose to ban imports of Russian natural gas through pipelines and liquefied natural gas LNG to the EU to reduce the Kremlins revenues.
Although the EU has already banned Russian oil imports, the dependence of some countries on gas from Moscow has so far prevented sanctions against this resource.
Any restrictive measures require the unanimous approval of all 27 EU member states.
This has become a significant obstacle due to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbns open scepticism of such steps.
Quote As an end goal, it is necessary to ban the import of Russian gas and LNG at the earliest date possible, the countries, which also include Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic and Romania, said in a document.
An alternative to the full ban could be to gradually reduce the use of Russian gas and LNG as has also already been set out in the RePowerEU Roadmap.
Details The European Commission, the EUs executive body, plans to present a detailed plan next month to phase out Russian energy.
However, there is growing concern in Europe about the gradual increase in gas prices caused by cold weather and new US sanctions against Russian energy.
Despite the EUs efforts to diversify its energy sources, the total value of oil, gas and coal imports from Russia since the beginning of the war has exceeded 200 billion.
This figure was stated in a document that was circulated among other EU members by the initiating countries ahead of the discussion of a new package of sanctions.
Background Six EU countries have called on the European Commission to reduce the price of Russian oil to US60 per barrel set by the G7 countries, arguing that this would reduce Moscows revenues needed to continue the war in Ukraine without causing a market shock.
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