Commissioner Simson: EU is ready to live without Russian gas coming from Ukrainian transit 

The European Union and its Member States have managed to put an end to decades of dependency on Russian fossil fuels, European Commissioner Kadri Simson said yesterday at the press conference on the State of the Energy Union Report 2024. 

Simson said that the EU is ready to live without the Russian gas coming from the Ukrainian transit route.

“We remain fully committed to completing the phase out of Russian gas, which can be done without challenging Europe’s energy security of supply,” the Commissioner said. “As a first step, together with the Member States we have been preparing for the end of the gas transit agreement via Ukraine. We have done that already for several months. We started preparing two years ago.” 

She added that the EU dependency from Russia dropped from 45% in 2021 to 15% last year: “We used to import 150 billion cubic metres of gas from Russia every year, and it is now less than 50.”

According to the Commissioner, ahead of the next winter, EU gas storage has reached the 90% filling target on 19 August, weeks ahead of the 1 November legislative deadline. 

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Press release

State of the Energy Union Report 2024