Lithuania urges EU to speed up ditching of Russian LNG imports

VILNIUS – Lithuania is urging the European Union (EU) to move faster away from Russian fuel after Europe imported more natural gas from Russia than from the United States in May for the first time in the last two years.

At an informal Energy Council meeting in Hungary this week, Lithuania and 12 other countries of the bloc called for further discussions to find specific ways to ditch Russian LNG imports and invited the European Commission to draw up an action plan, the Energy Ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.

“We need to mobilize our efforts and look for measures to further diversify our energy supply and to phase out Russian LNG imports as soon as possible. Over the past two years, we have achieved significant results in reducing the use of fossil fuels and rapidly developing renewable energy,” the press release quoted Deputy Energy Minister Inga Ziliene as saying.

The Financial Times reported earlier that Russian gas accounted for 15 percent of the total volume of gas, including liquefied gas, imported by the EU and other European countries in May, and American gas – for 14 percent.

Sanctions on Russia's LNG sector were included in the 14th package of sanctions against Moscow adopted by the EU Council in June. It does not include a ban for EU countries on buying Russian LNG, however.