Environmental organizations today condemned the new joint statement between US and 12 central and eastern European countries promoting increased imports of U.S. liquefied fossil gas (LNG) to Europe, warning that it repeats the very mistakes that triggered Europe’s energy crisis.
Eliot Garnier-Karcenti from Food and Water Action Europe: ‘Framing fossil gas expansion as ‘energy security’ ignores a simple reality: dependence on imported gas, whether from Russia or the United States, exposes Europe to volatile global prices, geopolitical shocks, and long-term infrastructure lock-in.’
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU was 44% dependent on Russia for its gas supplies. Four years later, the United States is well on track to become Europe’s largest gas supplier, overtaking Norway.
Diana Maciaga from Polish Green Network: ‘Diversification of fossil fuels is not diversification of energy. ‘Replacing one dealer with another does not solve the structural problem. It prolongs it.
It is also politically risky. Building long-term European infrastructure around U.S. LNG assumes a stable partner for decades, an assumption the U.S. regime’s authoritarian turn has repeatedly challenged in the last year.’
Denis Žiško from the Aarhus Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina added: ‘The current administration in the United States has been very direct about dismantling the EU legal order in multiple areas, from supporting far right politicians, dismantling civil society, weaking EU environmental safeguards and attacking digital regulations.’
Gligor Radečić from CEE Bankwatch Network: ‘The statement’s commitment to mobilizing export credit agencies and multilateral financial institutions for gas infrastructure is particularly alarming. Public money should be building renewables, grids, storage and efficiency in the EU and neighbouring countries — technologies that cannot be weaponized or manipulated, which lower bills for both households and industry.’
Contacts
Gligor Radečić, CEE Bankwatch Network, gligor.radecic@bankwatch.org,
Eliot Garnier-Karcenti, Food & Water Action Europe, egarnierkarcenti@fweurope.org
Denis Žiško, Aarhus Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina, denis.z@bih.net.ba
Diana Maciaga, Polish Green Network, diana.maciaga@bankwatch.org
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