EU should focus on renewable energy, cannot replace Russian gas

The EU cannot fully replace Russian gas imports with fossil fuel supplies from other countries, EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson said on Monday.

Simson explained that in order to bridge this gap, the European Union will need to accelerate its deployment of renewable energy sources.

"We cannot simply replace 155 Bcm of Russian gas with fossil gas from other suppliers. It [is] neither sustainable nor affordable. So we need to speed the deployment of renewable energy," Simson said after the EU energy council extraordinary meeting. 

The Irish Minister for the Environment, Climate, and Communications Eamon Ryan also said that the bloc needs to focus on increasing the efficiency of gas supplies, instead of ensuring additional supplies.

The French Minister for the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, told reporters ahead of the EU Energy Council's meeting in Brussels today that the meeting will focus exclusively on gas issues, Pompili said, adding that the European Union wants to show that they are all "unanimous in continuing to pay for contracts [for Russian gas]  in euros and will not allow unilateral modifications in the contracts to be imposed on us."