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EU’s deepening gas woes

Europe’s gas crisis went from bad to worse on Monday after Russia announced that it would slash deliveries to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% capacity beginning this week. The Kremlin’s dramatic move is further testing the European Union’s cohesiveness just days after Brussels called on members to voluntarily cut natural gas consumption by 15% until at least April 2023. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, wants its 27 member states to cut back in order to boost stockpiles ahead of winter as Russia continues to use its natural gas exports as a political weapon. But the sense of European unity that defined the early stage of the war – when the bloc rallied together to enforce crushing sanctions on Moscow – is now waning. Countries like Spain and Portugal that rely less on Russian natural gas than the Germans and Italians, say the plan doesn’t account for EU countries’ disparate needs (a diplomatic way of asking why the heck they should suffer because Berlin has failed to diversify its energy portfolio). Though Brussels prefers for the plan to remain voluntary, it has threatened to make reductions in gas consumption mandatory across the bloc. The plan could go to a vote as soon as Tuesday and requires 15 of 27 states to back it. For now, the bickering continues.