The European Commission will ask the companies details from the contracts for the Russian gases. “It is likely that companies will resist again”

The European Union will ask companies to disclose details from the agreements they have for Russian gases, based on a proposal that the European Commission will make to prohibit Russian gas imports, an internal document of the Community Executive that consulted Reuters shows.

The Commission is preparing to propose legal measures to completely prohibit Russian gas imports at the end of 2027, respectively to prohibit any new agreements for Russian gases at the end of this year. The proposals are to be published on June 17.

An internal analysis of the European Commission regarding the proposals, consulted by Reuters, shows that in order to implement the prohibition, information regarding the duration, the volumes contracted annually, the destination clause and the end date for Russian gas contracts will be requested.

“The implementation of measures – as they are conceived in the proposal – requires comprehensive and systematic information on existing contracts for Russian gas, including specific contractual agreements,” the document shows.

Reuters mentioned that there is the possibility of changing the proposals before publishing.

According to the document, the importers will also be obliged to reveal the origin of the imports, to be guaranteed that they are not Russian. The information will be disclosed for the EU and the national relevant authorities to be able to verify the prohibition.

“Unless the gas can be clearly considered to be of Russian origin, the proposal requires the importers to present to the customs authorities documentation about the origin of the imported gas,” the document shows.

The evaluation of the Commission shows that the future proposals will prohibit the liquefied natural gas (GNL) terminals to provide services to Russian customers, starting from January 1, 2026 – with a longer deadline, June 17, 2026, for existing service contracts within short -term GNL provision agreements.

In the case of contracts with long-term Russia, the deadline for the provision of services will be December 31, 2027, according to the proposals.

Companies have resisted in the past

Simone Tagliapietra, a senior researcher at Bruegel, a group of experts based in Brussels, said that the EU risks to have difficulty accessing information on Russian gas transactions, and companies have resisted in front of the previous attempts to collect this information.

“It is likely that companies will resist again, unless solid privacy protection are guaranteed,” Tagliapietra said.

“A viable way for the commission to do this could be to impose the unpublished disclosure to the national regulatory authorities or to the commission itself, under conditions of strict confidentiality, possibly aggregated or anonymized for public reporting,” he added.

According to the document, the European Commission will propose the prohibition of gas and GNL imports from Russia through a commercial measure of the EU. The specific mechanism is not mentioned.