Russia-Ukraine war: Europe unveils plans to spend $221 billion to ditch Russian gas, oil and coal

 

 The European Union has unveiled a €210 billion ($221 billion) plan to completely shed itself off Russian oil, coal and gas.
 Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the EU has sought to reduce its dependence on Russia's vast energy exports which has helped fund Vladimir Putin's military in its war against Ukraine. The EU agreed to ban Russian coal starting in August, and by last month had cut Russia's share of EU natural gas imports to 26% from 40% last year.

But a lot of European countries are dependent on Russian energy, with Hungary and Germany saying plans to wean itself of Russian energy could destabilize their economy greatly. Now the EU has unveiled a plan aiming to quickly ramp up imports of liquefied natural gas from the United States and Canada, and increase flows of pipeline gas from Norway while also setting up a platform to enable countries to jointly purchase energy, with the aim of helping to bring down rocketing prices.
Presenting its "REPowerEU" plan on Wednesday, May 18, the European Commission said it would attempt to slash consumption of Russian gas across the bloc by 66% by the end of this year — and break its dependence completely before 2027 by saving energy, finding alternate sources and speeding up the transition to renewables.
 "We are taking our ambition yet to another level to make sure that we become independent of Russian fossil fuels as quickly as possible," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a Wednesday press briefing.
"When Europe acts together, it has more clout," von der Leyen said of the joint procurement program. "This way we can secure energy imports we need without the competition between our member states."