The phaseout would deepen the bloc’s dependence on more expensive US gas, the Slovak prime minister has warned
The EU plan to phase out Russia as an energy supplier will end in the US reselling Russian oil and gas to Europe at far higher prices, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned.
Speaking in Bratislava on Sunday, Fico said Washington has “a huge interest in buying all transit infrastructures” across the European continent.
“So the Russians will supply the Americans with gas and oil at standard prices, and the Americans will sell it to us with an American high-margin surcharge. Are we such idiots already?” he said.
Already, “the share of Russian liquefied gas in Europe is increasing,” Fico added, pointing out the hypocrisy of Brussels singling out countries like Slovakia to pressure over Russian fuel supplies. “So we can’t, but France can buy liquefied gas from Russia.”
Contrary to the EU, Bratislava’s position is to “diversify the supply options for all fuels,” he said.
In February, the European Commission doubled down on long-standing plans to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports by 2027.
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While the US-Israeli war on Iran and the subsequent fuel crisis have pushed Brussels to prepare for “the worst-case scenarios,” the EU will not abandon its pivot away from Russian liquefied natural gas, the bloc’s energy chief, Dan Jorgensen, told the Financial Times last month. Brussels will instead rely on more expensive supplies from the US and other partners, he said.
Just last week, Washington launched a multi-billion dollar push to invest in and build a major US pipeline project in Central and Eastern Europe, which still imports Russian gas via the TurkStream pipeline and its extension – Balkan Stream.
According to Moscow, such US projects, as well as sanctions against Russian oil companies, are part of a sweeping strategy to capture the energy market.
Washington is aiming to monopolize all international energy supply routes in an attempt to attain global economic dominance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told TV BRICS earlier this year.
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