The European Parliament passed a law on abandoning Russian gas by an absolute majority
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On Wednesday, the European Parliament passed a law that provides for a complete rejection of Russian gas by the fall of 2027. "500 MEPs voted in favor, 120 voted against, and 32 abstained, it says on the EP website.

"Today's vote sends a clear and powerful message: Europe will never again be dependent on Russian gas. This is a great achievement for the EU and a historic turning point in European energy policy," said Inese Vaidere (European People's Party, Latvia), the main rapporteur from the Committee on International Trade.

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This is almost the last procedural decision: the document still has to be formally approved by the EU Council, after which it will be published in the Official Journal of the EU and will come into force in 2026.

Refusal from Russian gas will be phased in.

Short-term contracts concluded before June 17, 2025 will be allowed until April 25, 2026 for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and June 17, 2026 for pipeline gas; long-term LNG contracts will be valid no longer than January 1, 2027, and for pipelines the ban will take effect on September 30 (or, if there are difficulties in meeting the storage capacity targets, on November 1).

The new law also provides for the introduction of penalties that will be imposed on operators for violating the requirements.

They are set at up to 3.5% of the company's total annual global turnover for the previous financial year, or EUR 40 million, or 300% of the transaction value.

The decision to refuse Russian gas is due to the fact that the Russian authorities have consistently used gas trade as a weapon to achieve political goals, and used the proceeds for aggression against Ukraine.

  • The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that Russia will never be able to regain the position in the global natural gas market that it had before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
  • Russia's share in global gas trade, which was almost 25% in 2021, will fall to 10% by 2035, according to the baseline forecast, but in no scenario will Russia manage to get close to pre-war levels.