1 year ago
122 Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during a associated property league with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni pursuing their gathering astatine the Bocharov Ruchei authorities residence successful Sochi, Russia, May 17, 2017.
Yuri Kadobnov | Reuters
The European Union is "ready to react" to Russia's determination to halt state supplies to the bloc, a apical EU authoritative told CNBC connected Saturday.
Russia's state-owned vigor elephantine Gazprom connected Friday announced an indefinite halt to state flows to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 state pipeline, citing the request for further repairs.
The determination came aft supplies had already been halted past week for a planned "maintenance outage" that was expected to past until Sept. 3.
"We expect that Russia is respecting the contracts that they person but adjacent if the weaponization of vigor volition proceed oregon volition summation successful effect to our decisions, I deliberation that the Euoprean Union is acceptable to react," said Paolo Gentiloni, the EU's economics commissioner.
"Of course, we person to prevention energy, we person to stock energy, we person [a] precocious level of retention and we are not acrophobic of Putin's decisions," Gentiloni told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick astatine the Ambrosetti Forum successful Italy.
"We asked Putin to respect their contracts but if they don't respect their contracts past we are acceptable to react," helium said, without detailing precisely what actions this could entail.
Gazprom said connected the Telegram messaging app that inspectors recovered an lipid leak successful the pipeline.
"Gas proscription to the Nord Stream state pipeline has been wholly stopped until the issues connected the cognition of the instrumentality are eliminated," the vigor institution said.
The halt to supplies comes aft a summertime of volatile relations betwixt Russia and the EU arsenic the warfare successful Ukraine continues, with Russia accused of "weaponizing" state supplies to its European neighbors successful a bid to unit the bloc for sanctions relief. Russia denies utilizing vigor arsenic a weapon.
Gazprom has repeatedly said that sanctions are preventing it from maintaining and moving the pipeline efficiently and had already reduced state flows done the pipeline to astir 20% of its afloat capacity.
Gazprom's determination came hours aft the Group of Seven economical powers agreed connected a program to enforce a terms headdress connected Russian lipid successful an effort to curb Moscow's lipid revenues.
A halt to each Russian state supplies puts the EU successful a choky spot arsenic it heads into the autumn and winter.
Since Russia's unprovoked penetration of Ukraine, the EU has looked to trim and signifier retired its imports of Russian gas. However, portion it scrambles for alternate supplies, it remains somewhat babelike connected those supplies.
The bloc has already called connected each members to voluntarily trim their respective state depletion by 15% successful the autumn and done the wintertime months successful a bid to eke retired supplies.
