The EU has rolled out a plan which seeks to phase out all Russian energy and energy-commodity imports to the EU by 2030. Russia was a main energy and commodity export to Europe before its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The EU plans to remove off its dependence on Russian energy imports after Russian weaponised its commodity exports. Russia repeatedly threatened Europe’s energy security after it threatened to cut off supplies in 2006, 2009, 2014 and in 2022. In 2022 Russia, was bragging it was to freeze Europe to death.
16 EU sanction packages have drastically reduced Russian energy-commodity imports to Europe with coal being phased out completely, Russian oil imports going from 22% of the total share in 2022 to just 3% by the end 0f 2024 while the total share of Russian gas imports went down from 45 % in 2022 to 19% at the end of 2024. Russian coal has been phased out completely but imports of radioactive commodities still persist. Russian gas imports are to fall to 13% by the end of 2025 due to the end of gas transit from Ukraine. In 2024 14% of the URanium was sourced from Russia and up to 24% of Uranium enrichment services and supplies came from Russia.
The EU has already supported member states with financing to diversify their energy supply, spending up to €184.7 billion in energy initiatives from the Recovery and Resilience Plans and Connecting Europe Facility-Energy (CEF), €5.84 billion in cross-border infrastructure and another €55 billion on the EU “cohesion policy”.
EU member-states will be required to declare their Russian gas imports and have to come up with national plans for alternatives, which the EU will support. The EU is forecasting that more gas supplies will be made available in the coming months and years by the US, Canada, Qatar and even African countries. The EU is supporting a phased-approach so as to minimise economic impacts. The EU is also plans to increase its trading activity with Ukraine, North Africa and the Near East which will enable the tapping of further energy supplies. The EU is also promoting its new programme called REPowerEU to introduce hydrogen, biogas and biomethane.
The EU is also introducing a new programme to source and produce its own radioactive commodities. It added that its plan is also aligned with its climate-neutral policy.
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