E.U. Ambassador on U.S.-Europe Energy Task Force: ‘Plan Is to Decouple from Putin by the End of this Decade’

On Friday’s edition of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” European Union Ambassador to the U.S. Stavros Lambrinidis discussed the task force to wean Europe off of Russian energy with the United States and stated that “the plan is to decouple from Putin by the end of this decade,” and part of the plan is to boost consumption of renewable energy.

Lambrinidis responded to a question on whether Putin would still control a large swath of European energy if the task force is successful by stating, “Well, certainly, he controls a very large portion now. But the plan is to decouple from Putin by the end of this decade, and we’re beginning now with this announcement between the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and President Biden for the initial 15 billion cubic meters this year alone. Now, on top of that, we will add our own increased consumption of renewable energy and a number of major energy efficiency measures that we are taking as we speak, which are about another 15 or 20 bcms. That means, at the end of the day, that we’ll be able to already wean away from Russian gas by the end of this year very substantially, which is our goal.”

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