Von der Leyen: Gas and Diesel Prices Are Skyrocketing, So We’re Reducing Imports from Russia to Zero

EXCERPT:

VON DER LEYEN: "Families and industries are paying the cost of a crisis far beyond our borders. Since the end of February, gas prices have risen by 140%. Diesel prices have doubled. And altogether, if we look at the imported fossil fuels, their costs for Europe are $100 billion euros extra, without a single molecule of energy in addition. So we're all feeling these higher costs. Businesses are under high pressure. People struggle to pay their bills. And, this could, of course, intensify as we head into the winter. We need to act now to protect those most in need and to make sure we come out of this crisis stronger than we entered it, that we address the structural problems that are underlying for this crisis. Honorable members, we have gone through that before. Four years ago, Russia tried to blackmail us. At that time, 45% percent of our gas imports came from Russia. You’ll remember, almost overnight, almost everything was cut, but Europe stood together and we came out stronger. We diversified our supplies, we massively accelerated investment in homegrown, clean energy. And today, our import from Russian gas has fallen from 45% down to 12%, and we will reduce that to zero by the end of the year."