Moldova, as North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, rely exclusively on Russian gas, according to Western sources quoted by IPN. These say the United States is working on plans to open up alternative avenues for natural gas to arrive in Europe should Russia cut off its supply in a standoff with Western powers over Ukraine.
Data from the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators shows which countries’ energy supply would be most in jeopardy in the case of a Russian gas freeze. Among the continent’s major economies, Germany imports around half of its gas from Russia, while France only obtains a quarter of its supply from the country. According to the latest available data, it is relying more heavily on Norway. Italy would also be among the most impacted major economies at a 46% reliance on Russian gas.
The U.K., on the other hand, draws half its gas supply from domestic sources and imports mostly from Norway and Qatar. Gas used in Spain also comes from different locations, the biggest trade partners being Algeria and the United States.
Dependence also exceeded 90% of gas supply in Finland and Latvia. It stood at 89% in Serbia as per the latest available data.
Despite the continued reliance on its Eastern neighbor, experts believe that Europe is actually able to remedy up to two thirds of the gas quantity supplied by Russia if the tap was indeed turned off. This could happen via increased use of pipeline connections from Norway, the U.K. and North Africa as well as through the use of imported and regasified liquefied natural gas.
Assessing Moldova’s prospects in this European crisis that affects us directly, Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spînu pointed to the attempts of some of the politicians to gain political advantages by exploring the energy crisis... “What you are doing is incorrect and deceitful, colleagues. We know what we have to do to avoid such a situation in the future and will do it. I repeat, the energy crisis is not the crisis of our country. It is a European crisis that affects us directly. Moldova is for the second time in a state of emergency because of the crisis. The decisions we take are not popular, but are correct. We realize that they affect a lot of families and namely for this reason we came up with compensatory measures so as to ease this crisis. For the first time in history, 3 billion lei is allocated for paying subsidies to all the people through bills,” the official posted on social media.
