EU urges member states to slash gas use by 15% to counter ‘Russian blackmail’

theguardian.com:

The European Union’s executive body has urged member states to slash their gas consumption by 15%, as it warned that a complete shutdown of Russian supplies was “likely”.

The EU has been scrambling to wean itself off Russian gas since the invasion of Ukraine, but is alarmed about a potential energy crisis this winter.

In response to EU support for Kyiv, the Kremlin has already stopped or reduced gas supplies to a dozen EU member states and is expected to send lower volumes of gas to Germany when the Nord Stream 1 pipeline reopens on Thursday after scheduled maintenance works.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the Kremlin had kept gas storage as low as possible before the invasion and gone on to cut supplies. “Russia is blackmailing us, Russia is using energy as a weapon,” she told reporters.

“It is a likely scenario that there is a full cut-off of Russian gas and that would hit the whole European Union. A gas crisis in the single market, our economic powerhouse, will affect every single member state.”

Presenting the commission’s winter plan on Wednesday, she proposed that between 1 August to 31 March 2023 there should be a voluntary reduction in gas use to 15% below the average for that period over the past five years.

Under the proposals, if there is a drastic reduction or complete shutdown of Russian gas, Brussels could declare an EU-wide emergency and introduce legally binding reduction targets.

While emergency measures would fall on industry, EU governments are being asked to step up campaigns encouraging consumers to save energy, by turning down thermostats, shortening showers and not leaving appliances on standby.

Frans Timmermans, the EU’s top official in charge of the European Green