The European Union had been making ready for the chance that Russia may halt pure gasoline deliveries, mentioned Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. Nonetheless, she informed a information convention, the Russian transfer was an try “to use gas as an instrument of blackmail.”
Poland and Bulgaria will shortly obtain gasoline provides from neighboring E.U. international locations to compensate for the lack of Russian gasoline, she mentioned, declaring that “the era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end.”
Both Poland and Bulgaria mentioned the Russian cutoff would have little affect. In Poland, the place electrical energy is basically generated with coal, not gasoline, the federal government sought to assuage any public fears. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki assured Poles that gasoline storage tanks had been three-quarters full — a lot larger than in different international locations.
And if the Kremlin’s plan was to intimidate Poland and Bulgaria with a way forward for unheated houses and chilly meals within the hope of fracturing Western unity to assist Ukraine, it could have miscalculated. On a sunny spring day in Warsaw, the Polish capital, many individuals reacted with shrugs to the information — combined with disbelief that anybody would ever view Russia as a reliable provider.
“We have nothing to worry about if the weather stays like this,” mentioned Joanna Gres, a ballet dancer with a troupe hooked up to the Polish army.
Bulgaria, too, has enough gasoline provides for the subsequent month, Alexander Nikolov, the power minister, informed Bulgarian information media, vowing that the nation would “not negotiate under pressure and with its head bowed. ”
A prime German official mentioned the move of Russian gasoline to Germany, Russia’s greatest power buyer, remained regular, whereas including that the nation might reside off present reserves till not less than subsequent winter.
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