Poland threatens to break ranks with EU over gas plan
Poland threatens to veto any formal plan obliging the European Union’s member to cut gas consumption if such a plan is approved in a “qualified majority” vote not a unanimous one.
"If the EU tries to coerce us into voting by qualified majority, we will protest strongly. If necessary, we will make a formal veto…," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Thursday, speaking to private broadcaster Polsat News.
"We absolutely favor such a vote in this matter - due to the fact that it concerns electricity, the energy mix - being in the mode of so-called unanimity, where Poland has the right to veto. We demand it," he told.
The remarks came three days after the EU’s energy ministers approved a non-binding decision to cut gas consumption amid Russia’s move to sharply reduce gas exports to the bloc’s members.
The plan proposes that the bloc’s members voluntarily reduce gas use by 15 percent based on a five-year average, from August to March.
Hungary was the only country to vote against the scheme, with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto calling it “unjustifiable, useless, unenforceable, and harmful.”
The EU is grappling with an energy crisis caused by Russia's previous decisions to cut the flow of gas supplies to the continent. The decision has apparently been prompted by the bloc’s unprecedented sanctions against Russia over its February-present military operation in Ukraine.
The crisis deepened after Russian energy giant Gazprom said last Wednesday it would further cut flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to a fifth of capacity.
Also on Thursday, Poland's climate minister said that Warsaw had already achieved a significant reduction in gas consumption and a discussion about compulsory cuts was "unnecessary."
"I hope it will never happen ... we will absolutely not support such a [compulsory] reduction, and in the worst case, if we are outvoted, we simply won't comply," Anna Moskwa told public broadcaster TVP.
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