Austria wants to disengage from Russian gas, but there are practical and political problems
Austria, one of the few EU countries still receiving Russian natural gas via pipeline, is seeking to reduce its dependence on Moscow, including by seeking to end the long-term deal that Austrian energy giant OMV has with Gazprom, Austrian Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler of the Green party said on Monday .
“In recent decades, Austria has become heavily dependent on Russian gas. Despite the government's efforts, the share of Russian natural gas in Austria's gas import mix remains too high,” said Gewessler, who is from the ruling coalition partner the Green Party.
In December 2023, the share of Russian gas in Austrian imports will be 98%, the highest since the start of the war in Ukraine, the minister said at a press conference and in comments published on X.
“Our goal is: Abandon Russian natural gas. As a sovereign country, we cannot accept this dependence: the share of gas imports from Russia is increasing instead of decreasing,” Gewessler said.
Since the share of Russian natural gas is growing instead of decreasing and if the market fails, “the state must intervene,” he added.
“We will develop proposals to establish the legal requirements for diversification,” Gewessler said.
Furthermore, the minister stated that all options for terminating the long-term supply contract between OMV and Gazprom will have to be examined.
Gewessler also proposed forcing gas importers to gradually increase the share of non-Russian gas they sell to Austria.
The proposals would need a two-thirds majority in Parliament and Gewessler appealed to lawmakers to “take the next step and act in the interests of Austria's independence”.
Gewessler is a representative of the Greens, the coalition partner of Chancellor Karl Nehammer's conservative People's Party. It is unclear to what extent the People's Party was involved in the plans announced by Gewessler. Furthermore, Austria is an internal state with limited connections to external gas pipelines. Diversifying supplies is a problem, especially if Italy or Germany often do not have sufficient supplies from LNG via regasifiers.
It's also unclear how far the proposals would go, as Austria heads towards this year's general elections. The Freedom Party, FPO, ID group, is seen as having an advantage and, given that it already has governing experience with the conservative OVP, it is likely to lead the next Austrian government
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The article Austria wants to disengage from Russian gas, but there are practical and political problems comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/laustria-vuole-sganciarsi-dal-gas-russo-ma-ci-sono-problemi-pratici-e-politici/ on Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:31:08 +0000.