EU must be open to resuming Russian fuel imports, says Austria | USAEMALL.com

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The EU must be open to resuming Russian gas imports in the event of a peace deal being brokered to end the war in Ukraine, Austria has said, despite a newly proposed EU-wide ban on Russia’s fossil fuel.

Brussels “must maintain the option to reassess the situation once the war has ended”, the Austrian energy ministry told the Financial Times.

Elisabeth Zehetner, the Austrian state secretary for energy, made a similar plea to her EU peers at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, said diplomats with knowledge of the discussions.

Vienna’s stance marks the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that an EU member state other than Hungary or Slovakia has openly floated the resumption of Russian gas imports once the war is over.

The European Commission on Tuesday proposed to gradually ban Russian gas imports from January 1, with all the last vestiges of Russian fuel to be prohibited by 2028 — regardless of the outcome of peace talks.

Landlocked countries such as Austria, Hungary and Slovakia would be granted longer periods to phase out short-term contracts for Russian gas, while the rest of the bloc would have to put an end to those by June 17 2026.

Dan Jørgensen, the EU’s energy commissioner, said that a potential peace deal should “not lead to us starting to import Russian gas again”.

“That would be a very unwise decision because that would just be refilling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war chest with money. I think that would be to repeat the mistakes that we have done in the past,” he added.

The EU is using trade law for the proposed ban in order to circumvent any potential veto by Hungary or Slovakia, as reported by the FT on Monday.

The bloc will rely on the so-called “security exemption” under World Trade Organization rules. This has been used by the Trump administration, with Brussels so far reluctant to invoke it for fear of the precedent it sets for other countries.

Jørgensen said that unlike the sanctions regime, which is subject to unanimous backing by the EU’s 27 governments every six months, the proposed ban “will stand until someone decides to change it”. He described the measure as “unprecedented and forceful”.

EU officials said that the ban could result in arbitration cases but that the proposal was clear enough for companies to be able to invoke force majeure clauses in their contracts.

Several countries have raised concerns that the legal basis for the ban would not be strong enough to enable companies to call on force majeure clauses in their existing contracts without paying hefty penalties to Russia.

Unlike other fossil fuels — the EU banned Russian coal imports in 2022 and the G7 introduced a price cap on Russian oil in 2023 — gas has not been subject to EU restrictions. Even so, most countries have largely stopped importing Russian gas, notably Germany, even though its economy was severely affected as a consequence. However, imports of Russian liquefied natural gas have increased, with a record 16.5mn tonnes imported last year.

European officials have previously debated whether a return to Russian gas should be part of peace negotiations with Russia — with the commission firmly opposing such a step. Brussels is also proposing a ban on the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Germany to Russia — a measure endorsed by German chancellor Friedrich Merz as a way to quell any potential internal discussions about reverting to cheap Russian gas.

Leonore Gewessler, Austria’s former energy minister, said on Tuesday that Vienna’s “positive signals for renewed gas imports” from Russia would take the country “down a completely false path and embarrasses Austria at EU level”.

Austria has depended heavily on Russian natural gas for decades, importing about 80 per cent of its gas from the country before the war in Ukraine. This reliance was underpinned by long-term contracts between Russia’s Gazprom and Austria’s OMV, of which the government owns 31.5 per cent. OMV cut ties with Gazprom in a historic break last December following a long-running contract dispute.

Vienna has taken steps to diversify its supply, particularly by sourcing gas from other European countries such as Germany. The country, which is neutral politically but supports sanctions, has faced criticism for lagging in reducing this dependency since the war began.

Its neighbours Hungary and Slovakia, which remain dependent on Russian gas and which are led by Russia-friendly governments, have been vocal in their opposition to the commission’s plan to end all Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.

Italy, which imported the most Russian gas last year according to the think-tank Ember, previously also floated the option of resuming gas imports once the war is over, in discussions behind closed doors.

A spokesperson for the Italian energy minister declined to comment.

Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in Rome