Brussels clarified: The ban on the import of Russian gas does not apply to Serbia, BiH and North Macedonia

The legislative proposal of the European Commission (EC) sent to the address of 27 member states for the gradual abolition of the import of Russian natural gas and LNG will not affect third countries, in this case the candidate countries for EU membership in the Western Balkan region (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and North Macedonia), which receive Russian natural gas from the Turkish Stream gas pipeline through Bulgaria and owned by Russia, the European Commission explained.

EC spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen told dtt-net.com that the reason that gas pipeline owned by Gazprom was not included in the ban proposal has to do with EU customs law, since natural gas from Bulgaria flows to non-EU countries despite the fact that Russian gas then reaches Hungary via Serbia, a member country that opposes the EC's proposal to end the import of Russian energy by 2027.

The European Commission proposes to ban new contracts for companies on the purchase of gas from Russia on the basis of trade laws.

Existing short-term contracts for the import of gas pipelines, as well as for the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG), will have to be brought to an end next year, and for longer-term contracts, the expected end date is January 1, 2028.

As a concession to Slovakia and Hungary, since they import Russian gas, they will be granted an exemption to gradually withdraw from existing contracts by 2027.

The import of Russian gas was reduced to only 19 percent of the total import of that energy source in the EU, from about 40 percent at the beginning of 2022, when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

European Commission

Russian gas

Turkish Stream

Russian gas import ban