Brussels. The European Courtroom of Auditors assured on Monday that the European Union shouldn’t be ready to face a future gasoline disaster, regardless of having authorised a sequence of measures that search to curb its power dependence on Russia.
Europe’s power provide was disrupted in 2022 when Russia, the primary gasoline provider, invaded Ukraine and drastically decreased gas deliveries, prompting the EU to introduce emergency insurance policies to fill gasoline tanks, scale back consumption and purchase gasoline collectively.
The ECA stated in a report that Europe managed to keep away from a extreme gasoline scarcity throughout the disaster, however it was unclear how a lot of this was attributable to EU insurance policies versus different components, such nearly as good winter climate and excessive costs, which brought on industries to make use of much less gasoline.
Coordination between Brussels and EU nations helped forge new gasoline provide routes to keep away from shortages; Then again, the EU’s obligation for nations to fill 90% of their gasoline tanks earlier than winter created certainty available in the market.
Nonetheless, auditors stated these measures didn’t sufficiently deal with the problem of gasoline affordability, with the worth of gasoline hovering to over 300 euros ($322) per megawatt hour in August 2022, up from 50 euros per MWh final 12 months. former.
“The Fee already knew in 2014 {that a} lower in Russian gasoline provides would have a big impact on costs, however it by no means modeled its results on customers or the trade,” stated João Leão, who led the audit.
Auditors identified different gaps in European preparations for provide crises, together with that six EU nations have reserved the choice to chop off gasoline provides to their neighbors within the occasion of an emergency.
They didn’t touch upon how the expiration of the settlement on the transit of Russian gasoline to Europe by way of Ukraine this 12 months would have an effect on European power safety. However they famous that the EU’s total dependence on Russia has fallen from 45% of whole gasoline provides in 2021 to round 15% final 12 months.
European gasoline demand is anticipated to say no as nations lower fossil gas consumption to satisfy local weather objectives. The EU is lagging far behind in plans to construct carbon seize infrastructure to seize emissions from continued gasoline burning, auditors say.
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– 2024-06-29 13:00:55
