Energy: EU Commission submits plan for prohibitions of Russian gas imports

The EU Commission has submitted a plan for a complete stop of Russian gas imports. The Brussels authority thus wants to achieve that from 2028 no gas from Russia will be introduced to the community. According to the EU Commission, gas deliveries from Russia accounted for almost 19 percent of all imports in 2024.

Imports are to be prohibited gradually

According to the proposal, imports are to be gradually banned “to ensure market and supply stability”. For long -term delivery contracts, the prohibition should therefore apply from January 1, 2028. The Commission wants to ban gas imports as part of short -term contracts in a year, i.e. from June 17, 2026. On the basis of new contracts that are still concluded from now on, no Russian gas should be introduced from 1st January.

The proposal must now be negotiated by the EU countries and the EU Parliament before the rules can come into force. At the state level, the approval of 15 out of 27 EU countries is required, which together make up at least 65 percent of the total population of the EU.

According to previous information from the EU Commission, around two thirds of the Russian LNG and Pipeline gas imports are based on existing long-term contracts. The rest is delivered on a short-term spot basis.

EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen said: “The import of gas from Russia is a security threat to Europe.” The proposal will increase energy independence and at the same time reduce the income “the Putin uses to finance his war”. The Commission will work with the EU countries. No Member State will be without energy due to this proposal.

German companies could also be affected

If the import restrictions are proposed as proposed by the Commission, the federal German energy company Sefe could also be affected. Based on an existing, long -term contract, it further imports liquid gas from Russia into the EU. The company Sefe used to be called Gazprom Germania, was a daughter of the Russian state group Gazprom and was nationalized as a result of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine and the energy crisis.

The Commission wants to prohibit imports based on EU trade and EU energy law. “In order to protect the EU energy markets from trade-related risks and to provide more effective measures to monitor energy supply risks, the proposed regulation is based on a double legal basis,” said the authority.

The background of the project is the Russian attack war on Ukraine, which has been going on since February 2022. As a result, the EU issued extensive import bans for Russian energy sources such as coal and oil. So far, there have been no gas sanctions due to dependencies. As a liquid gas (LNG) and via the Turkstream pipeline, gas is currently still getting into the community.

However, an import ban on gas sanctions would require a unanimous decision by the EU countries. Hungary in particular refused such a step until the end. Hungary and Slovakia did not join a joint statement on the energy supply security of the EU countries, which contains the exit from Russian energy.

Commission: prohibited no risk of security of supply

According to an analysis of the authority, the remaining gas quantities could expire without risks for security of supply. There are enough alternative providers on the global gas market.

Nevertheless, the commission proposal contains a kind of security clause “to counter sudden and significant developments on the gas market that seriously endanger the security of supply of one or more Member States”. Under these circumstances, the Commission could allow one or more EU countries affected to suspend the import bans for gas. “Such approval should be limited in time, and the Commission can impose additional conditions to ensure that the suspension is strictly limited to coping with the threat.”

German company has an important role

The German company SEFE (Securing Energy for Europe GmbH) has an important role in the import of LNG into the EU. According to a report from the beginning of the year, SEFE imported more than six times as much LNG into the European Union last year. According to this, 5.66 billion cubic meters from Sefe from Russia imported liquid gas in the French Dunkirk on the English Channel:

SEFE now said: “If the deliveries from Russian LNG to Europe no longer take place, we would have to make our contractual obligations to our customers in order to make a replacement for the loss of LNG volume.” The replacement procurement strategy depends on the market prices, procurement costs, contractual conditions and project quality.

Commission also wants to end for Russian uranium and oil

In addition, the Commission presented plans for a complete stop of Russian oil imports until the end of 2027. Because despite a significant decline in imports since the beginning of the war in 2024, the information came to the European market after 13 million tons of Russian crude oil. According to the Commission’s proposal, the member states, which still import Russian oil, are now to create diversification plans in order to completely stop all remaining imports by the end of 2027.