Czechia's trade minister and the likely next EU energy commissioner has urged the incumbent Kadri SImson and Berlin, Budapest, Bratislave an
Czechia's trade minister and the likely next EU energy commissioner has urged the incumbent Kadri SImson and Berlin, Budapest, Bratislave and Vienna to intensify efforts to wean the bloc off Russian gas Russian gas should not be allowed into Europe through the back door after the expiry of a gas transit agreement between Kremlin-controlled Gazprom and Ukraine at the end of the year, Czech trade and industry minister Jozef Sikela has suggested in a letter to EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson and his counterparts in Budapest and elsewhere. Sikela, who is Czechia’s nominee for the next EU executive and tipped to take over Simson’s role, also sent the letter to his counterparts in Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, who remain reliant on imports of Russian gas, and Germany, whose direct connection was definitively broken two years ago when the Nord Stream pipeline was sabotaged. “Russia repeatedly demonstrated that it is an unreliable trading partner willing to use energy supplies as a weapon to disrupt and destabilize our energy market and the entire economy,” Sikela said in a statement on Thursday (5 September). “It is clear that nothing will change for the duration of its aggression against Ukraine.” The minister has proposed that reverse gas flows through his country could be used to replace the 40-42m cubic metres of Russian gas that currently flow daily through Ukraine. The “most suitable” alternative supplies could be LNG imports, the Czech trade ministry said, noting that the viability of his plan was increased by Germany’s decision to lift controversial storage fees from the beginning of next year.
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Irony is dead! The Russians only have to convert the gas to LNG, and then the EU will buy it. This headline from yesterday:
EU imports of Russian gas outstrip US volumes
















