The entire European Union (EU) has set itself the goal of phasing out Russian gas by 2027. All? No, there are still a few irreconcilable countries, which, despite the war in Ukraine and the commitments made in Brussels, are not really making an effort to move towards this objective set for almost two years now. Alongside Viktor Orban’s Hungary and Robert Fico’s Slovakia, two leaders who maintain political proximity with Vladimir Putin, Austria still imported, in December 2023, 98% of its gas from Russia.
“This is an absolute record since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine”recognized, in mid-February, the (ecologist) Minister of Energy, Leonore Gewessler, denouncing the “failures” Austrian gas suppliers. “There is enough non-Russian gas, but they don’t buy it”she lamented, promising to try to have more restrictive legal provisions adopted soon in order to align the practices of her central European country with those of the rest of the EU, which no longer matters ‘about 15% of its gas from Moscow.
30% owned by the Austrian state, the national energy company OMV has been hiding behind its contract with Gazprom for two years, signed in 2018 and which runs until 2040. Even though it was forced to pay in rubles and has faced with random deliveries at the start of the war, OMV ensures that it cannot break it and is forced to continue to buy deliveries which have, in the meantime, returned to a normal level. The project to build a gas pipeline of barely 40 kilometers to Germany, which should allow Austria to emerge from its landlocked state by having access to liquefied gas imported by sea to the German coast, is, for its part, bogged down in procedures.
“An extremely good lobby”
Beyond these economic arguments, there is in reality no real political will to end dependence on Russian gas, in this rich country which nevertheless has the means. Neutral and not a member of NATO, Austria has long maintained intense economic ties with Moscow and this legacy still leaves traces. “The Russians have an extremely good lobby in Austria”thus recalled the former boss of the Austrian energy giant OMV, Gerhard Roiss, during a debate organized on Sunday, February 18, on Austrian national television, noting that political reactions to the death of the opponent Russian Alexeï Navalny in prison remained there “very restrained”.
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