Brussels is preparing to tell EU members to reduce gas consumption “immediately”, warning that without further conservation the continent runs the risk of running out of fuel this winter, as Russia restricts supply .
The European Commission will provide members with voluntary gas reduction targets next week, according to a draft document seen by the Financial Times, which warns that targets will be made mandatory in the event of severe supply disruptions.
“Acting together now will be less disruptive and costly, facilitate solidarity and avoid the need for unplanned and uncoordinated actions later in a possible crisis situation with depleting gas reserves,” the document says.
The move comes when the International Energy Agency warned that efforts to diversify away from Russian gas were no longer sufficient on their own and that Europe was facing energy rationing unless demand was restricted to allow storage facilities should be filled before winter.
Over the past month, Russia has cut the capacity of the main pipeline to Germany, and the IEA fears further cuts could not be ruled out. Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said Europe was facing a “red alert” and that “significant additional reductions” were needed to “prepare Europe for a harsh winter”.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, on Monday signed a supply agreement with Azerbaijan that will increase deliveries to Europe by 48 percent this year and aims to double them by 2025, despite Azeri imports they represent only a part of the EU total.
The Central Asian country is one of several, including Qatar, the US, Israel and Nigeria, which has been courted by the EU as it tries to secure alternatives to Russian supplies.
Italy is also on the verge of increasing Algeria’s supplies, with the big Italian energy company Eni and TotalEnergies and Western France signing an agreement with Algeria’s Sonatrach on Tuesday for a new 4 billion-euro gas development project. dollars, which will eventually launch new supplies.
But the IEA, which acts as the West’s energy watchdog, said on Monday that efforts to increase supplies were still lacking and that the EU needed stricter measures, such as restricting air conditioning demand and auctioning off supply. of gas in industry.
The draft commission document did not include exact figures, but is expected to be finalized before the final publication of the proposal on Wednesday.
The latest documents are a review of a leaked plan last week that recommends limiting central heating and cooling to buildings, as well as exempting coal-fired power plants from emission reduction targets.
EU diplomats and officials have been blocked in talks on potential targets and how they would be implemented given the different energy combinations of different member states.
An EU official said negotiations were underway on what sanctions could be applied if targets were made mandatory and not met.
Europe previously depended on Russia for about 40% of its gas, but since the Russian invasion of Ukraine these supplies have been increasingly armed by Moscow in reaction to EU support for Kyiv.
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Russia has already shut down supplies to the Baltic states, Finland, Poland and Bulgaria and reduced flows to Germany and Italy.
In the draft plans, the commission noted that in June Russia’s gas flows to the EU had fallen to less than 30% of the average between 2016 and 2021. Europe imported a total of 155 billion meters cubic gas of Russia in 2021 and consumes about 400 bcm of gas in total in a normal year.
The leaked gas plan warned that continued cuts in Russian gas supply could lead to a fall in EU GDP of up to 1.5%, depending on the level of disruption. The European Commission declined to comment.
Von der Leyen said in a speech in Baku that the EU should “diversify away from Russia and turn to more reliable and trustworthy suppliers” and described Azerbaijan as a “crucial energy partner”.
The plan is for azer supplies to increase to 12 bcm this year, from 8.1 bcm in 2021 and finally reach “at least” 20 bcm in 2027, according to a memorandum. The fuel would reach the EU through the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline, a joint project between Brussels and Baku that opened in 2018 and is supplied mainly by gas fields in the Caspian Sea.
But despite EU efforts to establish a joint gas-buying effort similar to its coordinated purchase of Covid vaccines, officials admitted it was competing in a tight market where countries already had long-term contracts.
Additional report by Peggy Hollinger in London and Amy Kazmin in Rome