Lithuania becomes first EU member state to refuse Russian gas imports

Lithuania has become the first EU member state to refuse Russian gas imports, according to the country’s prime minister.

“From now on, Lithuania will not consume a cubic centimeter of toxic Russian gas,” Ingrida Šimonytė said in a tweet on Sunday.

This makes Lithuania the “first EU country” to refuse Russian gas imports, he added.

The EU has committed to reducing its dependence on Russian gas by 66% by the end of this year.

Dependency

The European Union depends on Russia for around 40% of its natural gas. Russia also supplies about 27% of its oil imports and 46% of its coal imports. Together, this trade is worth tens of billions of dollars a year to Russia.

The EU has promised to diversify its energy supplies earlier, most notably in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Little progress was made, in part because Germany – Russia’s biggest energy customer in Europe – did not want friction with Moscow.

But President Vladimir Putin’s decision to order last month’s invasion changed all that.

In early March, EU officials outlined plans to cut Russian gas imports by 66% this year.

A few days later, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc’s leaders had agreed to spend the next two months crafting proposals to eliminate the EU’s dependence on Russian energy imports by 2027.

And on March 25, US President Joe Biden announced a new initiative that includes the United States working to supply Europe with at least 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas by 2022, in partnership with other nations, the White House.

Overall, Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and oil has proven to be a major sticking point in Western efforts to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. While the US has banned energy imports from Russia, Europe has struggled to cut its supplies.

CNN’s Mark Thompson and Kevin Liptak contributed reporting for this post.