BRUSSELS, May 6. /TASS/. The European Commission (EC) presented, on its third attempt, its second plan since 2022 to phase out Russian gas by the end of 2027, European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen said at a press conference during the European Parliament session in Strasbourg.
The EC also intends to implement the phaseout of new gas contracts with Russia and spot purchases as early as 2025.
"We ban all imports of Russian gas under new contracts and existing spot contracts taking effect as of the end of this year. We ban remaining imports of Russian pipeline gas and LNG under existing long-term contracts by the end of 2027," Jorgensen said.
The EU Commissioner recalled that in 2024, the EU paid Russia 23 billion euros for the purchase of energy resources. He said that the ban on the purchase of Russian gas may be mandatory for EU companies and will mean declaring force majeure under contracts.
The European Commission will also require EU countries to submit plans to completely stop purchasing Russian oil, gas and nuclear fuel by the end of 2025. However, this proposal from the European Commission must still be approved by EU countries in the EU Council.
The European Commissioner also stressed that the European Commission intends to ban the purchase of Russian energy resources regardless of the end or continuation of the conflict in Ukraine.
The European Commission has proposed that EU countries ban themselves from purchasing uranium and nuclear fuel from Russia by the end of 2027, Jorgensen said.
"This means that we will introduce new restrictions to phase out Russian import of uranium, enriched uranium and other nuclear materials, as well as introduce obligations to be transparent and diversify supplies. We will make Russian fuels economically unattractive and strengthen our European Union nuclear fuel supply chain. There will be no new approvals for contracts with Russian suppliers co-signed by the Euratom Supply Agency," Jorgensen said.
For this purpose, the European Commission is exploring the possibility of introducing high tariffs on Russian nuclear fuel, he added. He declined to comment on the exact size of the tariff the Commission is proposing, saying that this will be known when the Commission prepares the final legal text of its proposal in June. Jorgensen noted that such legal norms have never been used before.
Jorgensen rejected the journalists' suggestion that the European Commission's plan could easily be challenged in the European Court of Justice on the basis of the basic European principle that each EU country has the right to independently determine the set of energy sources it uses. He voiced the opinion that Hungary will not be able to block the plan to ban EU countries from purchasing Russian gas and nuclear fuel, which could hit the Paks NPP in particular. But he noted that this plan still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and EU countries in the EU Council.
The European Commission has twice postponed the presentation of this plan, which it initially promised to present during the "first hundred days of the second European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen", that is, by the beginning of March. This is already the second plan since 2022 for the EU to phase out Russian energy resources by 2027. The first one - RePower EU - has not yet brought the result Brussels needs.