The European Commission will set a 2027 deadline for EU companies to sever any remaining energy contracts with Russia and shift to other sources including the US, according to officials.
The plan, to be announced on Tuesday, has been closely guarded ahead of publication by senior EU officials wary of its likely impact on the energy market. It marks an intensification of the bloc’s efforts to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
While Russian oil and coal are subject to strict sanctions, the EU has struggled to ban gas imports because of opposition from pro-Russian governments such as Hungary and Slovakia that argue doing so would increase energy prices.