BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 20. In 2021, the EU’s natural gas import dependency rate was 83 percent, 1 percentage point less than 2020 (84 percent), Trend reports with reference to Eurostat.
This small decrease in import dependency was significantly influenced by the fact that most EU Member States used stocks of natural gas that were imported in previous years. In fact, the drop in natural gas stocks in 2021 was the largest since the start of the time series (2008).
The EU Member State with the highest dependency on natural gas imports in 2021 was Malta (103 percent), followed by Sweden (102 percent) and Lithuania (101 percent), which have increased their stocks. On the other hand, the lowest dependency on natural gas imports was recorded in Romania (24 percent), followed by Denmark (26 percent) and the Netherlands (33 percent).
The table below shows ten European countries with highest level of gas import dependency in 2021:
|
Country |
Gas import dependency (%) |
|
Malta |
103 |
|
Sweden |
102 |
|
Lithuania |
101 |
|
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Estonia |
100 (each) |
|
Greece, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Finland |
99 (each) |
|
Bulgaria |
96 |
|
France |
95 |
|
Italy |
94 |
|
Czech Republic |
92 |
|
Germany |
89 |
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