Four years after the European Union launched a plan to break its dependence on Russian oil and gas and accelerate the clean energy transition, an audit presented by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) on Wednesday said the bloc's plan is falling well short of its ambitions.
Russian oil imports have plunged following EU sanctions and gas imports have declined, the ECA auditors noted, but they urge caution against attributing all of that progress to REPowerEU, the plan launched by the European Commission in 2022 to achieve energy sovereignty and end all dependence on Moscow.
"In our view, other factors also contributed to lower gas consumption – and consequently imports – which are not causally linked to the REPowerEU plan. These include mild winters, as well as reduced consumption by households and businesses in response to high energy prices," reads the ECA report.
The 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, which disrupted a major route for Russian gas to Europe, further accelerated the EU’s push to diversify away from Russian energy and exposed the vulnerability of Europe’s fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Commenting on the ECA report, a Commission spokesperson argued that the REPowerEU "contributed to a drastic reduction of EU imports of Russian natural gas, falling from 152 billion cubic metres in 2021 to 36 billion cubic metres in 2025, reducing the share of Russian gas imports from 45% to 12%".
