Von der Leyen declares arrival of 'era of Europe's full energy independence' from Russia

Many believed it impossible to completely abandon Russian fossil fuel imports, but today, this historic day has arrived – the EU is opening a new chapter in its journey toward complete energy independence from Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in connection with the preliminary agreement between the European Council and Parliament on phasing out Russian energy imports, Report informs.

"Many believed this would be impossible. Well, the figures speak for themselves, let me give you some. Today, Russian gas imports – LNG and pipeline - are down from 45% to 13%, coal imports, from 51% to now zero, and on crude oil, from 26% to 2%. I always knew we could deliver. With unity, with resolve, and by building on the extraordinary work of the past three years. With our REPowerEU plan, we overcame the worst energy crisis in decades. We saved energy together while ensuring energy security all the way. We diversified our supplies to trusted partners, signing new partnerships. And we invested in renewables and nuclear at unprecedented speed. Today, half of our electricity comes from renewables. And if you look at the low carbon energy, nuclear and renewable, it is 74%. And this is just the beginning. REPowerEU kept us safe, winter after winter. It kept the lights on in Europe's schools and hospitals. It kept homes warm across the Union. This is a true European success story.

As we slashed Russian imports of fossil fuels massively, we also cut the revenues that Russia uses to wage its war of aggression against Ukraine. We were paying Russia EUR 12 billion per month at the beginning of the war for fossil fuels - now we are down to EUR 1,5 billion per month, still too much, and we aim to bring it down to zero," she noted.