The fact that neither President Ursula von der Leyen nor the European Commission enjoys a prerogative to dictate where EU oil and gas importers buy their oil and gas was only the first structural flaw in her promise to President Trump to buy $750 billion worth of US energy products.
Listen to her energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen: “We have said that we want to move away from oil, gas and coal, so we should maintain our focus on doing so instead of paying more for things that we say we don’t want.”
But that was in June, and a month is a long time in politics – let alone in the topsy-turvy world of Trumpian trade policy.
In fact, we haven’t merely “said” we don’t want more fossil fuels: it is implicitly codified in the European Climate Law, which requires net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Legislators are now negotiating a bill that would oblige them to get 90% of the way there by 2040.
Maintaining current levels of fossil fuel use is not an option, even in the relatively short term, unless the EU plans to follow Trump out of the Paris Agreement.
But what if – as officials claim – US oil and gas will merely replace imports from Russia? Even for that to happen, the EU may have to tear up – or at least neuter through small print – its Methane Regulation.
From 2027 (coincidentally the deadline the Commission has proposed for Europe to stop indirectly funding the Kremlin's war machine), this piece of climate legislation will block imports from suppliers who do not apply the same strict monitoring and leakage controls as European producers.
So far the Commission has said it is not planning to review the regulation – but the US is already applying pressure, and several EU governments are already on board.
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