The European Commission wants Access to Gazprom Agreements
The European Commission intends to obtain access to all agreements on commercial gas supplies to the European Union countries, as reported by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on the 3rd of February, referring to draft documents that they received. Next week the European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, is planning to formally present this proposal.
According to the prepared documents, businesses involved in supplying gas will be required to report all contract details, including the price of both new agreements and previously concluded agreements that are subject to amendments. This information will be brought to national authorities and the European Commission. This rule will be applied to all agreements where the validity period exceeds one year and the supplier covers more than 40% of the country’s annual demand in energy resources.
These new rules also can be applied to agreements between Russian Gazprom and the Eastern European countries. It is likely that these standards will be also applied to the Nord Stream 2 project in which other gas companies (Eon, Shell and Engie) participate in addition to Gazprom. In cases where gas supplies are disrupted for any reason, the European Commission also wants to gain access to previously concluded agreements even if they weren’t subject to amendments and gas supplies don’t exceed 40%.
Miguel Arias Cañete proposed to invite to Brussels those companies already in negotiations for gas supplies between European countries and other States. Brussels hopes to avoid complications that have arisen with the construction of Nord Stream, the draft of which violated European legislation. These proposals should be approved by the European Union members and the European Parliament. Few countries are ready to grant more powers to Brussels.
FAZ noted that the German Government has strongly opposed the provision of such information to the European Commission as it is considered a commercial secret