European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Tuesday that the war in Ukraine is no reason for the EU to back down from its green goals. The commitment to become a carbon-neutral region by the middle of the century is still valid for the EU-27.
Fossil fuels
“Despite the war, we are not reassessing our green transformation goals, on the contrary, we are sticking to our green transformation goals,” Valdis Dombrovskis said at the Brussels Economic Forum on Tuesday. According to him, it is the disconnection from Russian fossil fuels that will accelerate the move away from fossil fuels altogether. “The move away from Russian fuels will eventually mean the end of the use of fossil fuels in general,” Dombrovskis added.
Imposing an embargo
In recent weeks, the European Union has seriously addressed the issue of imposing a complete embargo on imports of oil, gas and other energy resources originating from Russia. However, Russia is the dominant supplier of gas to the EU-27, and some countries are completely dependent on Russian gas, others to a large extent, and some almost not at all. This makes negotiations within the EU all the more complicated. The European Commission wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.