Energy dispute at EU summit
Scholz comes under pressure in Versailles
03/10/2022, 8:38 p.m
The longer Russia’s war against Ukraine lasts, the greater the differences within the EU. At the meeting of the states, there is not only a dispute about Ukraine’s speedy entry into the EU – the ban on imports of gas and oil, which Germany, among others, is blocking, is also causing disharmony.
As the Russian war against Ukraine continues, tensions between the EU states over the further course of the European Union are growing. At a meeting of heads of state and government in Versailles near Paris, countries like Latvia made it clear that they no longer considered Germany’s refusal to stop energy imports from Russia to be acceptable.
Opinions also differed on how to deal with Ukraine’s application for EU membership. Here, too, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was on the side of those EU states that are on the brakes. The SPD politician spoke out clearly against the possibility of accelerating the usually very lengthy admissions process for Ukraine.
Russian gas supplies Europe
Scholz was under pressure at the summit, however, mainly because of his rejection of an import ban on oil, gas and coal from Russia. “I am convinced that we should take the decision to stop energy imports from Russia in order to bring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to the negotiating table and end the war,” said Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins. He thus clearly sided with countries such as Poland and Lithuania, which had previously advocated such a move to deprive the Russian state of its main source of income and make further financing of the war against Ukraine more difficult.
According to estimates by the Brussels think tank Bruegel, EU countries currently spend around 420 million dollars (380 million euros) on Russian gas and almost 400 million dollars (362 million euros) on oil from Russia. This is mainly due to the fact that countries such as Germany, Austria and Hungary cover a large part of their energy requirements with supplies from Russia.
Scholz said on Monday: “There is currently no other way to secure Europe’s supply of energy for heat generation, for mobility, for power supply and for industry.” At Versailles, he said that when considering sanctions, one considers very precisely how to persuade the Russian government to end the war. At the same time, it is about ensuring that the effects in Europe are “as small as possible”. “We should continue to pursue this course,” he said.
“An accelerated accession, there is no such thing”
Clear tensions were also evident at the summit in the discussion on the question of how to deal with the Ukrainian desire for rapid admission to the EU. The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte gave the request a clear rejection. “There is no such thing as accelerated accession,” he said. His Luxembourg counterpart, Xavier Bettel, said he was not a rule-freak but there were conditions for joining the EU. He referred to the Copenhagen criteria. These include, for example, requirements for democracy, business and the rule of law.
Chancellor Scholz made a similar statement. “It is very important that we continue to pursue the things that we have decided in the past,” he said. Countries like Estonia and Lithuania, on the other hand, called for concessions. The Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that in her eyes there was a moral obligation “to make it possible for these people to achieve their European dream”. Ukrainians fought not only for Ukraine, but for Europe in the truest sense of the word.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy applied for EU membership last week in response to the Russian war against his country. However, joining the EU is a long and complicated process. Ukraine hopes for speed. “We don’t want a free ticket. But we want that to happen in an urgent procedure, within a few years,” said the Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk. The EU and Ukraine signed an Association Agreement in 2017 to deepen political and economic ties.
New aid package?
Another hot topic at the two-day summit in the Palace of Versailles is how to deal with the effects of the war on economic development in the EU. France has brought up the idea of adopting a debt-financed support program, as it did during the Corona crisis. This could therefore help to cushion the consequences of the current increase in energy prices, but also promote investments in defense projects.
Countries like Germany and the Netherlands do not consider this necessary at the moment and point out that the 800 billion euro Corona aid package should first be used up. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, on the other hand, was open to the French proposal. “Italy and France are also completely aligned on this front,” Draghi said.