Turkey will not join the EU plan to completely abandon Russian gas

This creates a risk of maintaining fuel supplies from Russia to the EU via Turkish routes even after 2027.

Turkey has officially refused to support a new EU bill that provides for a complete cessation of Russian gas imports by the end of 2027. This is reported by Politico.

Ankara’s Foreign Ministry said that it will only apply sanctions approved by the UN Security Council and considers unilateral restrictions a risk to the economy and energy security.

The European Commission seeks to strengthen control over the origin of imported fuel by obliging importers to provide data on sources and contracts. This should help block possible channels for the flow of Russian gas, but the effectiveness of the initiative is questionable without the participation of key transit countries, in particular Turkey.

Experts pay particular attention to the cross-border gas interconnectors Strandja-Malkoklar (Turkey-Bulgaria) and Kipi (Turkey-Greece). According to ENTSO-G, 1.9 billion cubic meters of gas entered the EU through them in 2024, and the volume could increase to 5.4 billion cubic meters. At the same time, it is impossible to establish with certainty whether all this resource is not of Russian origin.

Ankara insists that it does not allow its terminals to be used to circumvent EU rules and regularly publishes import data, but analysts warn that there is a high risk that Russian gas will continue to flow to the EU through Turkey in a “mixed” form.

Experts note that without political concessions, such as the resumption of energy negotiations or Turkey’s access to financing for “green” EIB projects, it will be difficult to convince Ankara to cooperate.

Also, as USM recently reported, Romania suspects the Russians of deliberately contaminating a batch of oil from Azerbaijan.