Faced with the risk of a total disruption of Russian gas supplies to Europe, the European Union must quickly develop its joint energy procurement platform into an emergency tool for gas supply and to coordinate gas distribution to EU countries in the coming months, argues the Bruegel think-tank in a note published on 16 June.
Through two “complementary proposals”, Bruegel recommends focusing the platform’s work on filling up gas storage facilities in the EU before winter, providing sufficient additional imports throughout the year to compensate for the drop in Russian deliveries and developing mechanisms to ensure that cross-border gas flows are maintained even in a disruption scenario.
For Simone Tagliapietra, one of the authors of the note, proper implementation of the platform “would represent an important tool to prevent the most important risk looming ahead for Europe in case of a supply shock: fragmentation of the energy market, with the consequent energy security, economic and political implications”.
The platform could then evolve into “a broader initiative”, adds Bruegel, by becoming an interface for the supply of gas, LNG and hydrogen to the European market, aggregating EU demand.
Currently, Russia has cut gas supplies to five Member States (Bulgaria, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark) and reduced flows to three others (Germany, Austria and Italy).
Italy and Slovakia have also announced that they are receiving less than half the usual volumes through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which crosses the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany and accounts for around 40% of Russian pipeline flows to the EU, according to information published by Reuters on Friday 17 June. On the same day, the French company GRTgaz reported that it had observed a halt in Russian gas flows to France via Germany since 15 June.
See the note: https://aeur.eu/f/26u (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)