The European Union is still dependent on Russian resources – a portion of EU states continue to import network gas from Russia. This particularly refers to Central Europe, to the south of Poland –countries in the Visegrád Group without access to the sea. Some of them genuinely have objective limitations, which require time so they could become independent from Gazprom. But, some of them have chosen to import gas from Russia– primarily Hungary, which has access to the Croatian terminal, but has chosen to continue buying gas from Russia. Western Europe still imports liquefied gas from Russia that is not from Gazprom but from Novatek – a potential rival of Gazprom in the European market, and they aren’t relinquishing this source for economic reasons, although they objectively could abandon this direction. There is no consensus regarding potential sanctions on Russian LNG, there aren’t any sanctions on the supply of network gas from Russia – therefore no one is breaking regulations. Unfortunately, some member states of the EU are blocking regulations introducing an embargo on Russian gas. In the oil sector, there is a dependency on Russian oil by the countries situated to the south of Poland, who continue to import this resource via the southern thread of the Friendship pipeline, stretching through Ukraine to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Even in this instance, sanctions have not been breached. For the supply by the Friendship pipeline embargo incidentally includes an exclusion for the southern thread – fought for by these countries so they could continue to introduce Russian oil to their markets for a time. The Czechs intend to abandon Russian oil in 2025, when the expanded Trans-Apline pipeline from Italy will allow them to import oil from outside of Russia. Hungary however doesn’t look to abandon Russian oil – even though they could do so using Naftoports, or the western direction, just like the Czechs.
“In this context, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, accuses Poland of hypocrisy because it also imports Russian materials. But this is a more complex issue because Russian oil actually reaches Orlen’s facilities in Czech Republic at the request of the Czech government. Russian oil does not reach Polish territory, the path of the Friendship pipeline’s northern thread through Belarus to Poland and Germany has been closed,” said Wojciech Jakóbik from the Energy Security Center to the eNewsroom.pl service. “Since 2023, Poland and Germany haven’t been importing Russian oil. There still is LPG, automobile and cylindrical gas– liquid. However, there is already a consensus regarding EU sanctions, which have been introduced, but are valid from the end of 2024. By then, Russian LPG will have disappeared from the Polish market and it’s important to stress that it’s not the Polish state that imports LPG, but the private market, which benefitted from geographic rent. Therefore, Poland is gradually but fairly abandoning Russian resources – whereas Hungary doesn’t want to abandon Russian resources, even though it could do so just like Poland. In 2022, Hungary’s dependency on Russian oil was less than that of Poland – 54% vs 80%. We’ve gone down to zero, Hungary doesn’t want to hear about it, because it clearly carries pro-Russian energy policies, which are short-sighted. In the long term, it also threatens the security of their supply – as shown by the dispute over oil supplies through Ukraine,” explains Wojciech Jakóbik.
Source: https://managerplus.pl/europa-wciaz-zalezna-od-rosyjskich-surowcow-energetycznych-96672
