BRUSSELS, July 11. /TASS/. The European Commission (EC) is not expecting Russian gas supplies to come to an end completely in the coming months, but does not rule out such a risk, Valdis Dombrovskis, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of an Economy that works for People, and Commissioner for Trade.
"That is not a baseline scenario, but that is not the risk we can exclude," he said answering a relevant question.
Dombrovskis added that the EC is preparing emergency plans both on the EU level and on the level of the EU member-states.
On June 14, Gazprom said it was forced to lower natural gas supplies via Nord Stream against the schedule due to untimely return of gas pumping units from repair by Siemens and identified malfunctions of engines. Siemens Energy claims that after the repair one of the gas pumping units for the North Stream cannot be returned to Germany from Montreal because of Canada’s sanctions against Russia. Due to this, Gazprom is currently using only 40% of Nord Stream capacity to ship gas.
The German authorities expressed doubts that such a strong reduction in supplies had only technical reasons. Berlin proceeds from the fact that after the return of the turbine and after the end of the annual maintenance work, which will last on the gas pipeline until July 21, pumping will be restored in full.
Earlier on Monday, spokesperson of the European Commission for Climate actions and energy Tim McPhie said that Canada’s decision to return a turbine for the Nord Stream pipeline does not violate the EU sanctions against Russia, because EU sanctions regime does not affect technologies which are linked to the transport of natural gas.