John Carlos BaezBefore Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany imported 55% of its gas from them. Now, none. Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have also stopped or almost stopped importing gas from Russia.
But Austria still imports more than half its gas from Russia. Since the invasion they've spent €7 billion on Russian gas.
One reason is that Austria is land-locked, so it can't build terminals for ships to bring in liquefied natural gas.
Umm, but so is the Czech Republic.
Another reason is that Austria is neutral, not part of NATO, and historically has close ties to Russia. For example, in 2018 the then foreign minister of Austria danced with Putin at her wedding! She even accepted a 50,000-euro pair of sapphire earrings from him as a gift. In 2021, she joined the board of Russia’s state-owned oil company. She only quit in May 2022.
Leonore Gewessler, the energy minister and a member of the progressive Green Party in Austria’s coalition government, says the government is committed to ending imports of Russian natural gas by 2027. But she also says “it’s not easy to undo years and decades of wrong policies in just a few months or in a year."
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