Regulation 2022/1369 - Coordinated demand-reduction measures for gas - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 206/1

The Russian Federation, the Union’s main external gas supplier, has started a military aggression against Ukraine, a Contracting Party of the Energy Community. The escalation of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine since February 2022 has led to gas supplies declining markedly, in a deliberate attempt to use gas supply as a political weapon. Pipeline flows of gas from Russia through Belarus have stopped and gas supplies through Ukraine have steadily decreased. Overall gas flows from Russia are now less than 30 % of average gas flows in the period 2016-2021. That supply reduction has led to historically high and volatile energy prices, contributing to inflation and creating a risk of further economic downturn in Europe.

Against this background, the Commission, further to its communication of 8 March 2022 entitled ‘REPowerEU: Joint European Action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy’, presented the REPowerEU plan on 18 May 2022 with the aim to end the Union's dependence on Russian fossil fuels as soon as possible, and at the latest by 2027. To achieve that aim, the REPowerEU plan sets out measures related to energy savings and energy efficiency and proposes an accelerated roll-out of clean energy to replace fossil fuels in homes, industry and power generation. Further measures on the supply side could include, inter alia, better coordination of gas purchases and the facilitation of joint purchases by European gas market operators on the international gas market, as well as best efforts to preserve electricity production capacities that do not rely on imported gas supplies.

The Union has taken further measures to increase its level of preparedness as regards gas supply disruption. Regulation (EU) 2022/1032 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1) was adopted to ensure the filling of underground storage sites for the coming winter seasons.

Furthermore, in February 2022 and in May 2022 the Commission carried out in-depth reviews of all national emergency plans and has also carried out in-depth monitoring of the security of supply situation. The measures taken by the Union since February 2022 were designed to enable a full phase-out of Russian gas by 2027, and to reduce the risks stemming from a further major supply disruption.

However, the recent escalation of disruption of gas supply from Russia points to a significant risk that a complete halt of Russian gas supplies may materialise in the near future, in an abrupt and unilateral way. The Union should therefore anticipate such a risk and prepare, in a spirit of solidarity, for the possibility of a full disruption of gas supply from Russia at any moment. Immediate proactive action is necessary to anticipate further disruptive action and strengthen the resilience of the Union to future shocks. Coordinated action at Union level can avoid serious harm to the economy and to citizens resulting from a possible gas supply interruption.

The current legal framework for security of gas supply set by Regulation (EU) 2017/1938 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) does not adequately address disruptions of a major gas supplier lasting more than 30 days. The lack of a legal framework for such disruption leads to a risk of uncoordinated action by Member States, which threatens to endanger security of supply in neighbouring Member States and may place an additional burden...