After 3 years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Europe announces plan to ban all Russian gas imports
After 3 years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Europe announces plan to ban all Russian gas imports
BRUSSELS — After years of reducing its reliance on Russian gas, the European Union is moving to turn off the taps completely within the next two years. The European Commission (EC) on May 6 presented a detailed roadmap to fully sever the European Union’s energy dependence on Russia by 2027.
About damn time.
I wish lemmy was less like reddit, and that commenters actually skimmed the articles or knew anything about the situation beyond the headlines.
But hell, here goes, I'll try to use small words and explain things for you guys:
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If they instantly turned it off without a replacement, a lot of people would have died. And even if a country government tried, their own citizens would riot over the idea that old people would die.
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Coal is already banned.
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Oil imports have dropped from 27% to 3%
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In 2021 the gas accounted for 45% of imports in the EU, now it's 19% and the plan is to have it at zero by 2027.
A lot of people did die, they were just Ukrainian instead of western European
Ukrainian do not vote for European governments though
There’s been a big influx of users from Reddit and with it came the low effort one liner zingers and people allergic to reading the linked articles.
I do really like how a lot of people here post articles give a summary below their link. While it’s definitely not required, it is super helpful and makes it harder for people to just form opinions and start blabbing in the comments based on a headline.
I'm definitely guilty of not opening the article pretty often, and I really love when posters put a summary/highlights/entire article when it's small in the body of the post. I actually do read/skim these pretty consistently vs opening and reading every single article in the feed.
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When Trump makes you look like an idiot you know you've screwed up.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZH6zhh_1rCw
Then Germany shutting their nuclear power down in order to focus on wind and solar, which has to be one of the dumbest mistakes made in the last century, which dramatically hurt places like Africa from which they stole their supply of coal. Meanwhile spain is having black outs due to their renewable usage, due to not having the massive energy storage required for 100% uptime.
That's not at all what's happening.
Spain said they didn't have the storage capacity with renewables. Germany did shut down nuclear plants and did open coal plants to supplant its energy supply.
About fucking time
Lukoil is still thriving in the USA. About .10 - .15 cheaper. Always a line.
Lukoil in the USA is American owned (as a franchise) and operated and does not use Russian oil. We don't import any Russian oil to the US. Some money does go overseas but Lukoil is (nominally) a private company so seems to have avoided sanctions. Overall I'd say there are bigger fish to fry.
This better stay in place once the war is over, no matter how it ends
The import of coal from Russia has already stopped, they are in the process of ending oil imports, but the situation is different when it comes to gas.
Although the share of Russian gas in the EU dropped from 45 percent in 2021 to 13 percent now, Russia still earns 23 billion euros per year from it. Despite the restrictions, Russian energy exports remain an important source of income for the Kremlin.
The EU member states and the European Parliament still need to approve the plans. The expectation is that the plan will lead to fierce debate, especially from Hungary and Slovakia. These countries are the most pro-Russian and still rely heavily on Russian energy.
But Commission President Von der Leyen says that the energy coming to Europe must not contribute to the war against Ukraine. "We owe that to our citizens, our businesses, and our brave Ukrainian friends." 👏🏽💪🇪🇺🇺🇦
Von der Leyen’s Plan to End Russian Gas Imports by 2027 (REPowerEU) (Sources: Reuters, AP News, Financial Times, Euronews, Kyiv Independent) Key Measures:
- Ban on new gas contracts after 2025
- End existing contracts by 2027
- Mandatory transparency for gas deals
- Switch to LNG from other suppliers & renewables
- Help for Hungary & Slovakia to transition
To overcome opposition from Hungary and Slovakia, the EU will use qualified majority voting, so no single country can veto the plan. Each country must submit its own phase-out plan, tailored to its situation. The EU is offering financial tools under the REPowerEU plan to help countries support their companies exiting Russian deals and phase out Russian energy. These include grants and loans from the recovery fund, support from the European Investment Bank, and targeted funds for energy infrastructure and renewables, like Hungary receiving €700 million in grants and applying for €3.9 billion in loans to upgrade its energy system.
Yes, and it can still be vetoed by our union friends from Slovakia or Hungary. Hell, even my own government in the Netherlands may try to sabotage this, since we've got the most worthless bunch of idiots ever in charge.
"New EU legislative proposals need approval from the European Parliament and a reinforced majority of EU countries."
That is different than sanctions which need to be unanimous (bit of an odd discrepancy)
This is so funny cuz it actually has the potential to bankrupt Russia, all because they chose to invade a nation that represents at best marginal economic power.
Russia chose to invade a nation that had recently discovered large reserves of natural gas - more than enough to supply Europe's needs while they transitioned to alternatives - and that sat astride the pipeline that Russia uses to provide their gas to Europe. Even though Russia has not proved capable of conquering all of Ukraine, their occupation of the Donbas region has prevented Ukraine from becoming a viable natural gas competitor in the European market and kept their primary source of revenue alive, at least in the short term.
If we actually manage to pull it off it's a pretty decent disincentive. Invade neighbor for resources? No one will buy those resources from you.
Obviously not sufficient on its own, but seems like a good place to start.
After 3 full years... only now doing it...
Nonono, they plan to do it. Might take anorher 3 years for execution.
It is part of a strategy to unload their dollar holdings. Basically buy natural gas from the US.
The value of a dollar is about to be beaten into the ground
It is part of a strategy to unload their dollar holdings.
Ya gotta have the currency in order to spend it. If a Nation runs out of USD while they still need NG (or anything else traded in USD) then they're going to have a bad time.
The value of a dollar is about to be beaten into the ground.
Possibly but the U.S. Federal Reserve has the ability to blackhole a LOT of dollars and if the inflows exceed their ability then the price of NG will climb until it balances.
If you doubt me then line up this chart of US NG Exports with this chart of USD DXY. The effect predicted by the strategy isn't visible.
Frankly I'm not sure there's enough NG demand in the world to tank the USD via purchases.
Wow a plan!
Good for the EU. People often need a common threat to come together
now its multiple threats , russia and the USA.
I'm sorry for what my country is doing...
At the moment, that is only one threat.
This should have been done on day one.
About damned time. They need to do that here (Japan) as well.
In another couple of years. If Hungary and Slovakia are willing to play along (they aren't).
"New EU legislative proposals need approval from the European Parliament and a reinforced majority of EU countries."
That is different than sanctions which need to be unanimous (bit of an odd discrepancy)