EU to fully end its dependency on Russian energy

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The EU will end its dependency on Russian energy by stopping the import of Russian gas and oil and phasing out Russian nuclear energy, while ensuring stable energy supplies and prices across the Union. The REPowerEU Roadmap, presented today by the European Commission, paves the way to ensure the EU’s full energy independence from Russia.

Despite the significant progress achieved under the REPowerEU Plan and via sanctions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in 2024 the EU saw a rebound in Russian gas imports. More coordinated actions are therefore needed, as the EU’s overdependency on Russian energy imports is a security threat. 

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “The war in Ukraine has brutally exposed the risks of blackmail, economic coercion and price shocks. With REPowerEU, we have diversified our energy supply and drastically reduced Europe’s former dependency on Russian fossil fuels. It is now time for Europe to completely cut off its energy ties with an unreliable supplier. And energy that comes to our continent should not pay for a war of aggression against Ukraine. We owe this to our citizens, to our companies and to our brave Ukrainian friends.” 

The roadmap sets out a gradual removal of Russian oil, gas and nuclear energy from the EU markets which will take place in a coordinated and secure manner as we advance our energy transition. The measures have been designed to preserve the security of the EU’s energy supply while limiting any impact on prices and markets.

As of 2025, the global LNG supplies are foreseen to grow rapidly, while gas demand will decrease. With the full implementation of the energy transition framework and the Action Plan for Affordable Energy, the EU is expected to replace up to 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas by 2030, which means a decrease in demand by 40-50 bcm by 2027. At the same time, LNG capacities are expected to increase by around 200 bcm by 2028, which is five times more than current EU imports of Russian gas.

Today’s roadmap will be followed by legislative proposals by the Commission next month.

A coordinated and stepwise phase-out of Russian energy supplies 

The Commission will work with the Member States to ensure that the EU-wide phaseout of Russian energy imports will be gradual and well-coordinated across the Union. They will be asked to prepare national plans by the end of this year setting out how they will contribute to phasing out imports of Russian gas, nuclear energy and oil.

All the measures will be accompanied by continuous efforts to accelerate our energy transition and diversify energy supplies, including via the aggregation of gas demand and a better use of infrastructure, to discard risks to the security of supply and market stability.

As regard gas, the upcoming proposals will improve the transparency, monitoring and traceability of Russian gas across the EU markets. Crucially, new contracts with suppliers of Russian gas (pipeline and LNG) will be prevented, and existing spot contracts will be stopped by the end of 2025. This measure will ensure that already by the end of this year, the EU will have slashed by one third remaining supplies of Russian gas. The Commission will further propose to stop all remaining imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027.  

Under the Roadmap, the Commission will also put forward new actions to address Russia’s shadow fleet transporting oil. As regards nuclear, the proposals coming next month will include measures on Russian imports of enriched uranium, as well as restrictions on new supply contracts co-signed by the Euratom Supply Agency (ESA) for uranium, enriched uranium and other nuclear materials deriving from Russia. A European Radioisotopes Valley Initiative is also envisaged to secure EU supply of medical radioisotopes through increased own production.

Background

The Roadmap builds on the EU’s immediate response to tackle the consequences of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the REPowerEU Plan, introduced in May 2022. The Plan sealed the EU’s determination to wean off Russian energy while accelerating the rollout of renewable energy and improving energy savings and energy efficiency.

Measures taken so far have reduced the volumes of imported Russian gas from 150 bcm in 2021 to 52 bcm in 2024 – with the share of Russian gas imports dropping from 45% to 19%. All imports of Russian coal have been banned by sanctions; oil imports have shrunk from 27% at the beginning of 2022 to 3% now. In nuclear, Member States that are still using Russian-designed VVER reactors have made progress in replacing Russian nuclear fuel with fuel from other producers.

By phasing out Russian energy, the REPowerEU Roadmap will reduce the security risks the Union is facing. It will also contribute to the economic plan set out by the Competitiveness Compass, the Clean Industrial Deal and the Affordable Energy Action Plan which underlined how a cleaner and independent energy system help boost the economy while also making a massive contribution to Europe’s decarbonisation ambitions.