Several European countries including Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and France have announced new LNG projects or the expansion to existing ones in response to shutdown of Russian gas pipelines.
Michael Sohn | Afp | Getty Images
So I’m sure you would have all seen U.S. President Donald Trump this week urged the European Union to impose tariffs of up to 100% on India and China to stop them buying cheap Russian oil.
A move that the U.S. administration said it would also match in an approach designed to ratchet up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk seriously about peace in Ukraine.
This makes sense in many ways, as we all know – stop the flow of oil money, increase economic problems for Putin and force him to the peace table.
So far, so good…. and yet the accusations of double standards soon started flying out of New Delhi and elsewhere, and it’s fair to say India and other buyers of Russian commodities have a fair point.
Part of the problem is having the adequate supply of infrastructure to bring other kinds of energy sources into Europe, according to Italgas CEO Paolo Gallo.
And Italy is a “clear example [of] how we were able to significantly, massively reduce the importation of Russia, of Russian gas. But that is thanks to our speed to Eni, but thanks to our infrastructure. If we didn’t have the infrastructure, we couldn’t have switched from Russia to other source of LNG,” Gallo told me on Thursday.
Italy’s been going strong at building out its LNG infrastructure to reduce its dependency on Russian gas. Now, a big part in that effort’s come from energy firm Eni, in which the Italian government has a major share.
Let me remind you that Europe still imports vast quantities of Russian commodities, including liquified natural gas. In fact, Europe is still the biggest buyer of Russian LNG on the world market.
Yes, three years into the war and Europe is still buying 51% of Russian LNG!
And before we start pointing the finger at the usual recalcitrant EU suspects, let us remember that it’s not Slovakia or Hungary who are the biggest single country importers. No, this falls squarely on the shoulders of countries like France, Spain and Netherlands.
Astounded, confused disappointed? Well wait for this bit.
Despite promising to cut out all Russian LNG from the EU by the end of 2027, in the first six months of 2025 Europe grew — yes, grew — it’s hiked Russian LNG imports from 3.47 billion euros ($4 billion) to 4.48 billion euros’ worth.
As for the bloc’s bilateral trade with Russia? It was hitting 67.5 billion euros last year. You had imports from the region at 35.9 billion euros, properly dominated by fuel and mining products, and then you had EU exports to Russia not that far behind at 31.5 billion euros in 2024.
Double standards, hypocrisy, economic reality? I’ll let you make up your mind.