BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10. Europe needs to start producing its own sustainable and renewable energy, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jørgensen said during the opening of the EU Sustainable Energy Week, Trend reports.
“Europe has recently sent a strong message to Russia: we will no more let you weaponize energy against us. No more will we let you blackmail our member states. No more will we indirectly help fill up the war chests in Kremlin. We need to become 100% independent of Russian energy. And the way we will do it is by banning import of gas. Already at the end of this year, we plan to ban spot market gas purchase. And at the end of 2027, we will also ban long-term contracts. It's not a good idea to be so energy dependent from any one source, especially if that source is your enemy. Now, we decided quite fast after having made those emergency plans that the right way forward was to move away from this dependency. And because we worked together, because the EU stood shoulder by shoulder, we have actually managed to do that to a large extent,” he said.
Jørgensen noted that as of February 2022, Europe got 51% of its coal from Russia, while today, it is 0%.
“We got 27% of our oil. Today, we get 3 percent. We got 45% of our gas. Today, we get 13 percent. So, we have moved away. We've done it at a speed and in a way that I don't think probably any other continent in the world would be able to do. It has been quite a transition, taking care of our citizens, taking care of our companies whilst doing it. So, this is extremely positive. On the other hand, as I said just a few minutes ago, we are still importing way too much from Russia. On an average month last year, we imported for 1.8 billion euros of Russian energy,” said the commissioner.
Jørgensen believes that energy security is obviously right now primarily about stopping sending money to Kremlin, getting rid of dependency.
“But energy security is about far more than that. On an average year, we import fossil energy for more than 400 billion euros. This is obviously not economically sustainable, certainly not sustainable for our planet. But even if we just look at our hardcore economic health in this union, our prospects for the future, then it's very clear that we need to move away from this dependency. Instead of buying for hundreds of billions of euros every year some energy that we will then use and then buy some new energy, maybe it would be a good idea to start producing our own sustainable and renewable energy,” he said.