EU member states agreed to reduce natural gas consumption by 15% in winter. The new regulation aims to make it mandatory for all member states to reduce gas consumption.
EU countries have agreed to cut gas demand by 15% from the average consumption of the past five years between August 2022 and March 2023.
The reason behind the gas demand reduction is to make savings ahead of winter in order to prepare for possible troubles of gas supplies from Russia which is continually using energy supplies as a weapon.
According to the Deputy Minister of Economy of Germany, Sven Giegold, the adopted document is an unprecedented step for European solidarity.
The European Commission submitted a new regulation on reducing gas demand on July 20, 2022, based on Article 122 of the Treaty.
After European countries refused to pay for gas in rubles, Russia stopped supplying natural gas to Poland, Denmark, Bulgaria, and Finland.
On July 18, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, went to Baku to get more natural gas from Azerbaijan. According to him, the European Union is trying to reduce dependence on Russian gas.Â
According to a news agency, as per the first version of the document, the Commission proposed to the EU countries to increase the import of natural gas to Azerbaijan and called on them to support the expansion of this pipeline.Â
