EU should consider resuming Russian gas imports if Ukraine peace reached, Austria says

By Kate Abnett and Bart H. Meijer

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) -The European Union should be open to resuming Russian natural gas imports if a peace deal is reached between Russia and Ukraine, an Austrian official said, as Brussels readies a proposal to ban Russian imports.

The European Commission is set to propose legal measures on Tuesday to enact the ban, with the aim of halting the EU’s reliance on Russian energy by the end of 2027.

"We will systematically weigh all proposals and then we will decide on our position," Austria's junior minister in charge of energy, Elisabeth Zehetner, told reporters with respect to the upcoming proposals.

"But it is clear already that when the war is finally over, that is something that we should take into account in our evaluation of the situation then," Zehetner said on Monday.

EU diplomats told Reuters Zehetner had emphasised the need to reconsider the ban if there is a peace deal in Ukraine, in a closed-door meeting of the EU countries' energy ministers on Monday, but that no other member states had called for the same.

Her office issued a clarification on Tuesday, saying Austria strongly condemns Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and supports a proposed ban on Russian gas imports.

"The allegation that Austria wants to import Russian gas again after the war, let alone now, is simply false," it said.

It added, however: "In the long term ... the EU should keep its options open in order to reassess the situation after the end of the war so that it can continue to configure its energy supply securely and cost-effectively in the future."

Hungary and Slovakia have rejected the plan to ban Russian imports. The Commission proposals, due to be published on Tuesday, are designed so they can pass into law with the approval of a reinforced majority of EU member countries, meaning one or two could not block them.

EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen said on Monday it would be "a very unwise decision" to resume Russian gas imports in the future, even if there was a peace deal in Ukraine.

"I think that would be to repeat the mistakes that we've done in the past," he said.

Around 19% of the EU's gas still comes from former top supplier Russia, down from roughly 45% before Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Land-locked Austria bought most of its gas supplies from Russia until last year, when Russian state energy giant Gazprom cut supplies to Austria after a contractual dispute, while supplies via Ukrainian pipelines ceased at the end of the year.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett and Bart Meijer; additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna; editing by Christian Schmollinger and Mark Heinrich)