- It is reported that the European Union managed to cut the "huge dependence" on Russian gas imports by two-third in the past eight months
According to TASS, Russia's state-owned news agency article published on October 19, 2022, European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has urged EU partners to buy gas jointly to avoid competition, which triggers price hikes.
"European solidarity and European unity" are the best response to "gas blackmail," she said at the European Parliament session on Wednesday, adding that "Europeans should buy gas together." "The companies involved may form a gas-purchasing consortium," the EC’s president said.
"The European Commission (EC) did this because we’ve learnt the lesson we literally saw in August of this year at the height of the heating season as member-states were outbidding each other thus, driving up the prices," von der Leyen said. "Energy solidarity is a fundamental principle of our treaties," she stressed.
The European Union managed to cut the "huge dependence" on Russian gas imports by two-third in the past eight months, EC President Ursula von der Leyen noted. "There was a huge dependence on Russian gas in March. At that time, we anticipated that it would take several years to replace the Russian gas," she said, adding that "it took eight months only to replace two-third."
"The European Commission (EC) has massively accelerated the diversification to other suppliers of gas from abroad, but this comes at a high price," von der Leyen stated. "So the actual solution to maintain our competitiveness is to invest into home-grown sources of energy, especially renewables," she noted.
