crude oil

EU leaders have committed to phasing out the Union’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and tasked the Commission with presenting an ambitious plan by May 2022. In its RePower EU plan the Commission has put forward several actions, including energy saving, supply diversification, and means to accelerate Europe’s clean energy transition, as well as ways to combine energy infrastructure investments and reforms. The plan gives a glimpse of the investments required to enable the EU to end its dependency on Russian fossil fuels, but fails to confirm a date by which the Union would completely phase out Russian fossil fuels. At the Versailles summit, the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, indicated 2027 as target date.
The energy debate is likely once again to be heated, as the degree of dependency on Russian fossil fuels differs greatly across Member States (see Figure 1). Lithuania, which has built the necessary infrastructure in recent years, announced it is now free of Russian gas imports. Other Member States, including Estonia, will stop Russian gas imports by the end of 2022. Certain EU countries, such as Hungary, continue to be highly dependent on Russian gas and oil imports, and have thus far opposed a ban on Russian oil imports.