As part of the European Union’s efforts to halt imports of Russian natural gas by 2027, the bloc will require EU companies to disclose details of their contracts to buy Russian gas, according to an internal European Commission document seen by Reuters.
In May, the EU unveiled a roadmap to end dependency on Russian energy.
The roadmap calls for the EU to stop all imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027 by improving the transparency, monitoring, and traceability of Russian gas across the EU markets. New contracts with suppliers of Russian gas will be prevented and spot contracts (for immediate payment) will be stopped by the end of 2025, the European Commission said last month.
The Commission, the EU’s legislative arm, is working on proposing legal measures to stop all of EU’s gas imports from Russia by 2027 and ban new deals for Russian gas by the end of this year.
The Commission plans to publish the legislative proposals next week.
The internal documents seen by Reuters say that the EU will demand from EU companies to disclose many details of the deals, including duration, annual contracted volumes, date of conclusion of the contracts, and destination clauses.
Russian gas supply via pipelines to Europe has slumped since 2022, after Russia cut off many EU customers from its gas deliveries, and Nord Stream stopped supplying gas to Germany, after Russia reduced flows and after a sabotage in September 2022.
But Russian gas still accounts for more than 15% of the EU’s gas deliveries, including by pipeline and via LNG imports.
The EU has reduced the share of Russian gas imports, from 45% of all gas imports before 2022, down to 18% now, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the end of April.
Russian pipeline gas supply via Ukraine stopped on January 1, 2025, after Ukraine refused to negotiate an extension to the transit deal.
However, some European countries, including Hungary, continue to receive Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline via the Balkans.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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