Russia’s ‘Gas Card’, Biden Administration Working to Keep European Allies United
_Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: The strategic step taken by the Moscow government has forced the Biden Administration to think smartly and work to keep the European allies united. The scarcity of gas for cooking and other purposes may surge in the upcoming winter in Europe as a few hours back, the Russian state-owned company ‘Gazprom’ had announced to cut the gas supply to Europe.
The US and Brussels have been pleading with EU members to save gas and store it for winter, and on Tuesday, energy ministers agreed in principle to cut gas use by 15 percent from August to March. US officials on Tuesday said that their “biggest fear” has come true as Russia cuts gas supplies to Europe and the Biden administration is working furiously behind the scenes to keep European allies united.
On Monday, Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom said it would cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany in half, to just 20 percent of its capacity.
A US official said “This was our biggest fear. The move was retaliation for western sanctions, and that it put the West in “unchartered territory” when it comes to whether Europe will have enough gas to get through the winter. The impact on Europe could boomerang back onto the US, spiking natural gas and electricity prices,”
In response to the turmoil, the White House dispatched the presidential coordinator for global energy Amos Hochstein to Europe on Tuesday, he will be traveling to Paris and Brussels to discuss contingency planning with the US-EU energy task force created in March, one month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials said.
US officials, who have been in close touch in particular with German and French officials on this topic, are extremely concerned that Europe might face a serious gas shortage going into winter. That is because EU countries will struggle to fill their reserves over the next few months with Nord Stream 1 providing only a fraction of its capacity.
Germany was planning to completely phase out its use of nuclear power by the end of 2022, but US officials are hoping to convince Berlin to extend the life of its three remaining nuclear power plants amid the energy crisis. Germany scrapped plans for another Russia-Europe gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2 after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, an official said.
The US was opposed to that pipeline, warning that it would only increase European dependency on Russian gas. But Germany argued that the pipeline was a purely commercial project and that it could serve as an energy bridge as it phased out nuclear and coal.
The US ultimately issued waivers allowing the pipeline project to move forward without crippling sanctions.
“This is an open gas war that Russia is waging against a united Europe,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.
The US official said it was clear the Russians are “lashing out” and trying to “destabilize Europe” because they are not achieving their goals in Ukraine.
