BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug.2. EU members can decide to make energy savings compulsory, said Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission, Trend reports with reference to the European External Action Service.
“The experts from Bruegel as well as those of the Commission estimate that we will need an overall reduction of EU gas consumption of 15 percent to manage a complete stop of Russian supplies. Of course, there are significant variations among EU countries in their exposure and vulnerability to a possible Russian cut off. On 26 July, the Council adopted an important set of measures. Its central plank is this overall gas savings target of 15 percent. But it will take into account different national circumstances and efforts, for instance the degree to which infrastructure exists that connects individual countries to their neighbours. For now, this is a voluntary target but if circumstances so dictate, member states can decide to make the savings compulsory.
At heart, this is about how we prepare ourselves for a tough winter and how we organise solidarity among us, pooling risks and resources. It is a familiar debate for us Europeans: we went through a comparable process at the beginning of the pandemic. At first, the tendency was for every country to go it alone, but then, quite rightly and successfully, EU countries opted for joint procurement of vaccines, which guaranteed all EU citizens had equal access to life-saving vaccines,” he said.
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