Brussels launches withdrawal plan to get rid of Russian hydrocarbons

“Putin’s war is destabilizing the global energy market. It shows how dependent we are on imported fossil fuels and how vulnerable we are by relying on Russia to import our fossil fuels. Now we must reduce our energy dependence on Russia as quickly as possible. Russia. We can.” President of the European Commission, Nobody except Ursula von der Leyen until a few months ago, after the acceptance of the new package of proposals that would enable the transition from Russia to energy independence. Poland or Baltic countries they posed. The “brutal” war against Ukraine changed everything. First of all, because continuing to depend on and pay for Russian gas and oil means continuing to indirectly finance the Kremlin and its war – about 800 million euros a day.

For now, 27 Europe have decided to get rid of coal subject to sanctions, but they are still struggling to embargo oil although gas is still not on the table at the moment. After Moscow’s decision to cut supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, Brussels realizes it may be a matter of time before Russia does. Vladimir Putin turns off the tap completely. To foresee such a situation, the strategy proposes to diversify oil, gas and hydrogen imports and to establish a voluntary platform. joint purchase This increases Twenty-Seven’s bargaining capacity and allows them to get cheaper prices. Von der Leyen, who has been negotiating for months with countries such as the United States, with which he signed an agreement last March, says, “This way, we will be able to provide the energy imports we need without competition between our member countries.” , Norway, Qatar or Egypt.

But this bet will require multi-million dollar investments and major reforms. “We have mobilized nearly 300 billion euros. About 72 billion euros in grants and 225 billion euros in loans,” said the head of the commission. This amount will include up to 10,000 million to fill gaps in gas and liquefied natural gas and ensure that no Member State is left out. In addition, another 2,000 million will be used to finance oil infrastructure to stop the shipment of Russian oil. The remainder of the funding will be used to accelerate and grow the clean energy transition.

More efficiency and renewable

The second pillar of the dependency reduction plan focuses on increasing energy savings much faster than originally planned, as it is the fastest and cheapest way to deal with the energy crisis. For this, the EU’s energy efficiency target for 2030 will be 13%, not 9%, while the renewable energy target will increase from 40% to 45%. Brussels is proposing to expand and accelerate the clean energy transition through different actions it calculates could achieve a 5% reduction in gas and oil demand.

To achieve this, they propose speeding up the long procedures to allow for renewable energies, which usually require 6 to 9 years in wind projects, and mandating the installation of solar on the roofs of commercial buildings, as the German company explains. A solar strategy that allows doubling the capacity by 2025 and installing 600 GW by 2030, accelerating the distribution of green hydrogen and facilitating the import of 10 million tons, and a new Via Mediterráneo biomethane scheme in public buildings by 2025 and new residential buildings by 2029. as well as more LNG infrastructure. “Ambitious yet realistic,” he assured her.