New Europe: EU calls for ‘non-Russian sources’ of gas

The Russian-backed South Stream gas pipeline has never been a European priority, a European Commission spokeswoman told New Europe on 10 May. “Why? Because it diversifies routes but not supply as it is supposed to bring Russian gas to the EU,” she explained.

Two days earlier, in a further effort to reduce the EU’s reliance on Russia, MEPs said in a report adopted by the Energy Committee that "diversification should mean new non-Russian sources of oil, gas and electricity for those Member States which are overly dependent on this single supplier".

The rapporteur MEP Edit Herczog from Hungary said in her report – adopted on 8 May with 47 votes in favour, 11 against and one abstention - that energy should be seen principally as a commodity and should not be used as a foreign policy tool. She also stressed that Europe is a major purchaser of energy globally and if it used this in a coordinated manner and took a firm, common negotiating position with third countries it would nearly always be in a good bargaining position.  MORE