BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 25. The European Court of Auditors (ECJ - the audit chamber) has published a special report "09/24 - Security of EU Gas Supply" presenting its recommendations to the European Commission (EC) on the effectiveness of tackling the problem of reliable supply, Trend reports.
"The crisis triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has tested the EU's resilience to a sudden change in gas supply. Although prices rose sharply in 2022, leading to significant costs for households and businesses, we were lucky not to face a serious gas shortage," ECA spokesperson João LEÃO, responsible for the audit, noted.
According to him, given the EU's dependence on foreign gas, the EU can never be completely sure of the security of its supply, and consumers have no guarantee of access to gas in the event of a serious shortage in the future.
The European Court of Auditors report noted that since the EU imports more than three-quarters of its gas for its needs, security of supply is essential to sustain the EU economy and ensure its prosperity.
Among the positive aspects, the auditors pointed out that by the end of 2023, the EU, by abandoning Russian gas, was able to stabilize gas prices, which reached pre-crisis levels at the beginning of 2024 and are holding steady.
"During the crisis, the EU did achieve its target of reducing gas demand by 15 percent, but we (auditors) could not determine whether this was due to measures taken by the EU alone or also due to factors such as forced savings due to high prices, warm winter, for example. The EU also reported exceeding the target for gas storage capacity, but this merely reflects the normal level of storage capacity as it was before the crisis," the European Court of Auditors believes.
The auditors questioned the value of the launch of the Aggregate EU electronic platform to provide an alternative channel for gas trading through joint procurement.
Furthermore, the auditors noted that many EU member states remain reluctant to sign bilateral agreements on mutual solidarity in case of gas supply emergencies with their neighbors.
In addition, the auditors highlight insufficient progress on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCU), which could also jeopardize gas supply security in the long term.
"Given the EU's climate targets (in particular, reaching zero emissions by 2050), the need to reduce carbon emissions from gas consumption will become an increasingly important feature of the EU supply security landscape," the report emphasizes.
Presently, the four commercial CCU projects operating in the EU can collectively capture up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) per year.
"This is a drop in the ocean compared to the 450 million tons of CO2 that CCUs need to capture each year until 2050 to meet the EU's climate change targets," the auditors stressed.
They also pointed out in their report the EU's heavy reliance on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as the need to decarbonize some of the gas consumed in the EU.
Consequently, the European Court of Auditors made the following recommendations: 1) finalize the EU gas availability framework; 2) optimize the EU Member States' reporting process on the security of gas supply and revise the regional cooperation framework; 3) increase the transparency of the implementation of projects of common interest (PCI) for EU countries.
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