EU does not rule out the possibility of stopping importing Russian gas

The economic vice president of the European Commission (EC), Valdis Dombrovskis, assured that the European Union (EU) does not exclude “any measure”, including the prohibition of importing Russian gas, among the sanctions it is approving to try to stop the invasion of Ukraine .

“What I can say now regarding sanctions is that all options are on the table. We do not exclude any measures,” Dombrovskis said in an intervention in the European Parliament to debate the impact that sanctions against Russia will have on the EU.

“Until now, the analysis that we have been doing was focused on the other way around, on what would happen if Russia, for example, cut off the gas supply and the conclusion of this analysis is that not without problems, but we can handle this situation,” he assured.

Nearly 40% of the gas that reaches the EU comes from Russia and some twenty countries depend on it, Norway being the second largest supplier (16%), followed by Algeria (8%) and Qatar (5%).

Precisely the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, met last week with the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, who also held a meeting, among others, with Dombrovskis.

The vice president of the European Commission also met with the CEO of Econor, the largest Norwegian energy company, who assured him that the company is already supplying “more than one hundred percent of what they can”.

In addition, Brussels has multiplied contacts in recent weeks with producing countries such as the United States, Azerbaijan or Qatar.

Regarding the impact that such a measure would have on the EU, community sources said today that “one of the points that must be mentioned is that, at this time, if you look at gas storage, the latest figure is that we have 30% gas storage capacity at this time from our historical reserves. That would also give us a little cushion.”

Since Russia launched the invasion against Ukraine, the EU has sanctioned the Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin, as well as the Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has decided to prohibit transactions with the Central Bank of Russia, excluding a list of banks from the SWIFT banking system, has closed the airspace to Russian aviation and, among other measures, has agreed to stop broadcasting Russia Today and Sputnik.

Sanctions that will have an impact on the EU, assured Dombrovskis without giving more details, although “it is a price that will be worth paying to defend peace and democracy and also the right of States to defend their territorial integrity,” he said.