France and Belgium have refused to support the European Union's plan to completely abandon natural gas imports from the aggressor country of russia. Paris and Brussels want guarantees about the economic and legal consequences of this decision.
This was reported by Politico on Tuesday, June 3.
French Energy Minister Marc Ferracci said in a comment to Politico that Paris prefers a strategy of finding alternative sources of supply.
"We defend the European diversification strategy, which is already on the table," Ferracci said.
According to the publication, he is referring to France's plan to replace supplies from russia with gas from Qatar.
Belgium is also not ready to support the EU plan aimed at completely abandoning russian gas. Brussels demanded a report detailing the economic consequences before making a decision.
The publication notes that the indecision of France and Belgium contrasts sharply with the position of Spain and the Netherlands, which are also large importers of russian gas.
Representatives of both countries told Politico that they are ready to support the rejection of russian gas. Theoretically, this would help the countries get out of contracts that would otherwise force them to buy russian LNG for many years.
According to Kpler, in 2024, France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands imported 16.7 million tons of russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is 97% of total EU imports and more than half of russia's global exports. Moscow received more than EUR 6 billion for this gas.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in March this year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the European Union would continue its policy of rejecting russian gas.
However, as Reuters previously reported, the European Commission has twice failed to present a plan to stop importing fuel from russia.
Recall that the day before, it became known that since the beginning of russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, energy exports have allowed Moscow to earn EUR 883 billion.
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