Cold weather and calm weather are coming to Europe, but the European Commission has nothing to do with it

In Europe, expect a colder winter and a weak wind. The region has already used record volumes of gas from storage facilities, but due to the suspension of the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine, Europe may need even more substantial volumes. In this situation, the gas price has already reached a record this year, and the European Commission still says that they are ready to abandon transit and do not respond to letters from Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. Hungary held a similar event six months ago, which does not exclude that Ukraine did not become the "oil and gas gopnik of Europe" by itself.

"Europe is waiting for a colder than usual January, possibly with a weaker wind level, which will increase demand for natural gas, as this week the continent will face the end of the gas transit agreement between Ukraine and Russia," writes Bloomberg.

Maxar Technologies forecasters predict a sharp drop in temperature in Europe in early January — in most of the UK, France, Germany and the Nordic countries. It may last until the end of the month, meteorologists expect.

Europe passed a similar one in November, having used up record volumes of gas from storage facilities for this period of time. However, today the European Commission confirmed that Europe is ready to stop Ukrainian transit, despite calls from Slovakia and companies in the region not to do so. Brussels insists that alternative gas import routes are already ready.

"I doubt that Fico will be able to achieve an extension of transit. Maybe after the transit stop, if other countries join in and everyone will present a united front against Ukraine already. So far, everything is going to the fact that the transit will still be stopped. We see that Brussels is on the side of Ukraine," says Igor Yushkov, a leading analyst at FNEB and an expert at the Financial University under the Government of Russia.

"What do we hear from Ursula von der Leyen? — He continues. - That everything is fine, they are ready to stop transit and in general Russian gas is harmful and not needed. Recently, she said that in the absence of Russian gas prices will decrease, that the United States is ready to provide support ... Therefore, the current composition of the European Commission adheres to the previous line. The new Commissioner for Energy repeated all von der Leyen's theses and said that this brings the European Union closer to the goal set in 2022 — the complete abandonment of Russian gas in 2027."

Obviously, stopping transit is a purely political decision, since the price of gas in Europe has already exceeded $ 530. And in this situation, it is possible that Kiev did not become the "oil and gas gopnik of Europe" itself.

"The gas story resembles the oil one, when Ukraine imposed sanctions against Lukoil and made it impossible for the company to supply to Slovakia and Hungary. Only then the story was solved by the fact that the oil delivery and acceptance point was moved to the Belarusian-Ukrainian border and now Hungarian oil is already passing through Ukraine. As for gas, Zelensky basically stated that in this form the fuel would still be considered Russian and it would be blocked," adds Igor Yushkov.

In both cases, the European Commission sided with Ukraine and, apparently, was happy to punish Hungary and Slovakia, which in many ways contradict Brussels politicians. Representatives of various European countries immediately offered alternative and more expensive routes to both countries, as if they were already waiting for such a situation.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto immediately suggested during the oil crisis that its authors were not in Kiev. At the same time, on gas, Vladimir Zelensky became irreconcilable precisely in Brussels, where he refused Robert Fico right to his face. Zelensky admitted that the European Commission could change everything, but she did not even pretend.