LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer usually goes out of his way not to annoy Donald Trump. So he better hope the windmill-hating U.S. president doesn’t notice what the U.K. just did. In a fillip for the global offshore wind industry, Starmer’s government on Wednesday announced its biggest-ever down payment on the technology. It agreed to price guarantees, funded by billpayers to the tune of up to £1.8 billion (€2.08 billion) a year, for eight major projects in England, Scotland and Wales. The schemes have the capacity to generate 8.4 gigawatts of electricity, the U.K. energy department said — enough to power 12 million homes. It represented the biggest “wind auction in Europe to date,” said industry group WindEurope. It’s also an energy strategy that could have been tailor-made to rankle Trump. The U.S. president has repeatedly expressed a profound loathing for wind turbines and has tried to use his powers to halt construction on projects already underway in the U.S. — sending shockwaves across the global industry. Even when appearing alongside Starmer at press conferences, Trump has been unable to hide his disgust at the very sight of windmills. “You are paying in Scotland and in the U.K. … to have these ugly monsters all over the place,” he said, sitting next to Starmer during a visit to his Turnberry golf course last year. The spinning blades, Trump complained, would “kill all your birds.” At the time, the prime minister explained meekly that the U.K. was seeking a “mix” of energy sources. But this week’s investments speak far louder about his government’s priorities. The U.K.’s strategy — part of a plan to run the British power grid on 95 percent clean electricity by 2030 — is a clear signal that for all Starmer’s attempts to appease Trump, the U.K. will not heed Washington’s assertions that fossil fuels are the only way to deliver affordable bills and secure supply. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Starmer’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, a former leader of the Labour party. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. | Pool photo by Justin Tallis via Getty Images While not mentioning Trump or the U.S., he said the U.K. wanted to “stand on our two feet” and not depend on “markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.” WIND VS. GAS The goal of the U.K.’s offshore wind drive is to reduce reliance on gas for electricity generation. One of the most gas-dependent countries in Europe, the U.K. was hit hard in 2022 by the regional gas price spike that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government ended up spending tens of billions of pounds to pay a portion of every household energy bill in the country to fend off widespread hardship. It’s a scenario that Miliband and Starmer want to avoid in future by focusing on producing electricity from domestic sources like offshore wind that are not subject to the ups and downs of global fossil fuel markets. Trump, by contrast, wants to keep Europe hooked on gas — specifically, American gas. The U.S. National Security Strategy, updated late last year, states Trump’s desire to use American fossil fuel exports to “project power.” Trump has already strong-armed the European Union into committing to buy $750 billion worth of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a quid pro quo for tariff relief. No one in Starmer’s government explicitly named Trump or the U.S. on Wednesday. But Chris Stark, a senior official in Miliband’s energy department tasked with delivering the 2030 goal, noted that “every megawatt of offshore wind that we’re bringing on is a few more metric tons of LNG that we don’t need to import.” The U.K.’s investment in offshore wind also provides welcome relief to a global industry that has been seriously shaken both by soaring inflation and interest rates — and more recently by a Trump-inspired backlash against net zero and clean energy. “It’s a relief for the offshore sector … It’s a relief generally, that the U.K. government is able to lean into very large positive investment stories in U.K. infrastructure,” said Tom Glover, U.K. country chair of the German energy firm RWE, which was the biggest winner in the latest offshore wind investment, securing contracts for 6.9 gigawatts of capacity. A second energy industry figure, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the U.K.’s plans were a “great signal for the global offshore wind sector” after a difficult few years — “not least the stuff in the U.S.” The other big winner was British firm SSE, which has plans to build one of the world’s largest-ever offshore wind projects, Berwick Bank — off the coast of Donald Trump’s beloved Scotland.

BRUSSELS — On the same day world leaders arrived at the COP30 summit in Brazil to push for more action on climate change, Greece announced it will start drilling for fossil fuels in the Mediterranean Sea — with U.S. help. Under the deal, America’s biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, will explore for natural gas in waters northwest of the picturesque island of Corfu, alongside Greece’s Energean and HELLENiQ ENERGY. It’s the first time in more than four decades that Greece has opened its waters for gas exploration — and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming it as a victory in its push to derail climate action and boost the global dominance of the U.S. fossil fuel industry. It comes three weeks after the U.S. successfully halted a global deal to put a carbon tax on shipping, with the support of Greece. “There is no energy transition, there is just energy addition,” said U.S. Interior Secretary and energy czar Doug Burgum, who was present at the signing ceremony in Athens on Thursday, alongside U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the new U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle. “Greece is taking its own natural resources, and we are working all together toward energy abundance,” Burgum added, describing Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as a leader who “bucks the trend.” Only a few hours later, U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterrez made an impassioned plea for countries to stop exploring for coal, oil and gas. “I’ve consistently advocated against more coal plants and fossil fuel exploration and expansion,” he said at a COP30 leaders’ summit in Belém, Brazil. Donald Trump was not among the many world leaders present. NOT LISTENING “America is back and drilling in the Ionian Sea,” said Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador, at the Athens ceremony. Drilling for natural gas — a fossil fuel that is a major contributor to global warming — is expected to start late next year, or early 2027. Greece’s Minister of Environment and Energy, Stavros Papastavrou, hailed the agreement as a “historic signing” that ends a 40-year hiatus in exploration. Last month, Greece and Cyprus — both major maritime countries — were the only two EU countries that voted to halt action for a year on a historic effort to tax climate pollution from shipping. Greece claimed its decision had nothing to do with U.S. pressure, which several people familiar with the situation said included threats to negotiators. Thursday’s ceremony took place on the sidelines of the sixth Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) conference, organized in Athens by the U.S. and Greek governments, along with the Atlantic Council. Greece aims to showcase its importance as an entry point for American liquefied natural gas (LNG), bolstering Europe’s independence from Russian gas. LNG from Greece’s Revithoussa terminal is set to reach Ukraine this winter through the newly activated “Vertical Corridor,” an energy route linking Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had hoped to capitalize on his warming relations with U.S. President Donald Trump to secure a supply of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles — weapons Kyiv believes could be a game-changer and deliver a decisive blow to the Kremlin’s war economy. Fresh off successfully brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, surely Trump would have the appetite to give Ukraine what it needs to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into getting serious about negotiations. But that isn’t what happened. Zelenskyy’s meeting in the White House was perfectly cordial — Trump used that word himself to characterize their encounter. There was no frostiness, and no return to the nastiness of last February’s now infamous Oval Office brawl. Zelenskyy learned his lesson thoroughly on that score and now knows deference is obligatory when approaching “daddy” Trump. The meeting was, however, fluffed, mainly because Ukraine was in too much of a hurry. “It wasn’t a bad meeting, just a victim of poor timing and inflated expectations,” said one Republican foreign-policy insider who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. But it could have been much more productive if Zelenskyy had readjusted his thinking and rejigged his agenda after the lengthy phone call Trump had with Putin the day before. During that two-and-a-half hour call, Trump teased Putin with the prospects of supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks: “I did actually say, would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition? I did say that,” the U.S. president told reporters. “He didn’t like the idea.” And the outcome was an agreement to meet at another summit — this time in Budapest — with Trump once again seemingly persuaded that Putin might be ready to end the war. The Ukrainian leader doesn’t believe “Putin is ready just to finish this war,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview Sunday. Nonetheless, Putin’s call should have prompted Zelenskyy and his team to recalibrate, dial down their expectations and, above all, downgrade their push for Cruise missiles, said the insider. “There was no way Trump was going to agree to Tomahawk acquisitions ahead of his meeting with Putin in Budapest.” The Ukrainian leader doesn’t believe “Putin is ready just to finish this war,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” | Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images But Ukraine ignored the counsel of its Republican friends in Washington — many of whom are skeptical Trump will agree to give Ukraine Tomahawks under any circumstances, for fear of escalation and drawing the U.S. deeper into the war. That’s not even considering the Pentagon’s worries about the U.S.’s own stockpiles, which Trump himself mentioned to reporters on Friday. By failing to drop the Tomahawk request, Ukraine squandered an opportunity to focus on a slew of other crucial items — foremost among them, air-to-air missiles for their F-16 and MiG warplanes and surface-to-air interceptor missiles for Patriot air-defense systems. Both are needed to shoot down drones and ballistic missiles, and Ukraine is desperately short of them because of the record airstrikes Russia is now mounting. The focus on Tomahawks also distracted from other key asks, such as getting Trump’s approval for the use of immobilized Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine’s defense. For his part, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is in favor of this proposal. The U.S. only holds $7 billion in Russian assets, but the EU’s big three in the G7 — Germany, France and Italy — want Japan and America actively involved, as they worry that tapping into the €140 billion in Russian assets held in Europe could undermine the euro’s global credibility. If Washington and Tokyo were to take similar action, their fears would be allayed. There was also only limited progress on discussions about Ukraine importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S., now that Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s natural gas infrastructure have increased in both intensity and frequency. So far, Ukraine’s state oil and gas firm Naftogaz has bought around 0.5 billion cubic meters of U.S. LNG, but more will be needed if the country is to endure the winter. And earlier this month, Ukrainian Minister of Energy Svitlana Hrynchuk said Kyiv was aiming to increase its overall gas imports by 30 percent. Along these lines, the country’s Minister of Economy Oleksii Sobolev noted last week that Ukraine was “considering mechanisms to finance the purchase of American LNG and compressor equipment.” But according to an official from America’s export credit agency the Export-Import Bank, who asked to remain anonymous as they’re not authorized to speak with the media, these discussions are now bogged down because Ukraine is objecting to the rather restrictive loan terms being offered. And the bank has only limited legal maneuver to amend the terms. In fact, the huge delegation of Ukrainian ministers and officials — including Zelenskyy’s powerful Chief-of-Staff Andriy Yermak and Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko — sent to Washington ahead of Friday’s White House meeting struck out across the board, failing to finalize several major agreements involving both the U.S. government and the private sector.  “The idea was that there would be massive things readied, including some agreements with major U.S. defense companies and energy players, all to be inked during the White House meeting,” said the Republican insider. But in the end, nothing was oven-ready. “Unfortunately, nothing really concrete was agreed during the entire week,” another Republican foreign-policy adviser concurred. He also said the misguided focus on Tomahawks was only part of the problem — the other was the timing of Zelenskyy’s visit and the overall Ukrainian lobbying push in Washington. The focus on Tomahawks distracted from other key asks. | Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images “We had urged them to delay,” he said. It was important that Svyrydenko and the economy officials were in Washington because of the annual IMF and World Bank meetings, but the rest of the lobbying effort should have been delayed for a week or so. And certainly, Zelenskyy’s offer of exchanging Ukrainian drone technology for Tomahawks was far too premature. For one, the Trump administration was still very much focused on the Middle East. Plus, with the government shutdown and the blame game over the budgetary battle between Democrats and Republicans, there wasn’t enough oxygen for Ukraine. In their defense, the adviser added, there’s rising alarm in Kyiv about how Ukraine will make it through this winter — likely the worst of the war so far. Zelenskyy hinted at this worry on Sunday, telling NBC that because Russia isn’t winning on the battlefield, it’s escalating airstrikes on infrastructure. “He’s using missiles and drones on our — he wants disaster — energy disaster during this winter by attacking us, each day [with] 500 Iranian drones and 20-30 missiles,” he said. And the Republican adviser agrees: “There’s a real danger is that Ukraine is headed for an energy catastrophe if the Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure persist.”

BRUSSELS — A coalition of European leaders has convinced U.S. President Donald Trump that Russia is not interested in ending its war in Ukraine and must be forced to the negotiating table. Now they have to persuade an unpredictable White House to agree on how to make that happen. A flurry of diplomatic visits over the past week has seen top officials on both sides of the Atlantic meet to talk about new financial restrictions and plans to cut off the flow of Russian oil and gas. A high-level EU technical team was even dispatched to Washington to work on the details of the proposals, whose core aims enjoy mutual agreement, officials and diplomats told POLITICO.  “Trump is finally on our side. The question now is how do you reconcile the two approaches?” said one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.   While the bloc is putting the finishing touches on a new package of sanctions — the 19th to be imposed on Russia since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — negotiators say privately that the most effective action needs to be taken in partnership with the Americans.  And although there is a broad consensus on the need to pressure Putin to come to the table, the Trump administration prefers to use trade tools like tariffs to drain the Kremlin’s war chest while the EU pushes for formal sanctions on the businesses and financial institutions that deal with Moscow.  A second EU diplomat said they expected “heated discussions” with the U.S. on how to actually go about hitting Russia.  RED LINES The U.S. president told EU officials this week that he wanted to impose a 100 percent tariff on India and China for buying Russian energy, provided Brussels follows suit. That, however, is an economic and political impossibility for the EU.   Such a move would go against the EU’s core principles, particularly after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated her opposition to tariffs, insisting that “tariffs are taxes” on domestic consumers. Slapping tariffs on India, with whom Brussels is nearing a major trade deal, and on China, to which its open economy is heavily exposed, would amount to colossal acts of self-harm.  “We don’t do tariffs. We are a trading bloc. We are exporters. Exports are the engine of the EU economy. This is our DNA,” said Agathe Demarais, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.   Such a move would go against the EU’s core principles, particularly after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated her opposition to tariffs, insisting that “tariffs are taxes” on domestic consumers. | Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images “This is simply a way for the Trump administration to make an unrealistic demand from partners,” Demarais added. “The partners will say no, because there is no way on earth that the EU is going to impose tariffs, especially at that level, on China and India, and then say, OK, so our partners refuse to go forward, and so we cannot move forward.”   A recent discussion paper floated by the Danish presidency of the Council of the EU, seen by POLITICO, explored whether capitals would be open to imposing tariffs on Moscow as part of the bloc’s 19th sanctions package. That idea, according to several diplomats briefed on the talks, won little traction among ministers when it was discussed last month.   PUMP FOR TRUMP  The U.S. president has also called on Europe to stop buying Russian fossil fuels — the Kremlin uses the proceeds to pay for its tanks and troops — providing helpful leverage to EU leaders already pushing for a total end to imports from the country.  Energy Secretary Chris Wright landed in Brussels for meetings on Thursday, where he hoped to cement the details of an agreement struck between Trump and von der Leyen for the bloc to buy an additional $750 billion worth of American gas, oil and nuclear fuel.  “These are ambitious energy import targets,” Wright told reporters on a conference call. “Certainly the U.S. can supply that, but that’s a framework that’s expecting energy trade to grow significantly from our country … the U.S.’s liquefied natural gas exports growing to displace the rest of Russian natural gas that is still imported into Europe.”  At a press conference following the meeting with his American counterpart, Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said he intended to accelerate the bloc’s commitment to end all imports of Russian natural gas by the end of 2027 — potentially bringing the deadline forward if it can be agreed as part of a compromise with member countries.  “I have put forward a proposal to ban the import of Russian gas,” he said. “For that to … happen in a way that doesn’t lead to increases in prices and security of supply problems in Europe, we need help from our American friends. We need to import more LNG from the U.S.” Aside from being a major commercial opportunity for the U.S., the proposal also gives Brussels a stronger hand in dealing with Kremlin-friendly countries like Hungary and Slovakia, which have been holding out against the plans to sever ties with Russia.

BERLIN — Canadian liquefied natural gas will be ready to flow to Europe by 2032, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told POLITICO. The idea is to build a pipeline that funnels LNG from the west coast of Canada to a port on the east coast, like the port of Churchill. From there, it would be shipped to Europe from a terminal that has yet to be constructed. “I think you’re probably talking about five to seven years,” said Hodgson in an interview in Berlin on Wednesday after talks with four LNG suppliers and multiple German companies. The idea was initially floated back in 2022 when Germany’s then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz tried to persuade Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to find a way to ship LNG to Europe to help wean the continent off Russian oil. But the project floundered due to a lack of infrastructure, namely a pipeline to bring the LNG some 8,000 kilometers from east to west. Now, amid U.S President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have hit both Germany and Canada hard, both countries are scrambling to deepen ties in areas such as defense, critical minerals and energy. Hodgson took the opportunity to throw shade across the border, stating that Canada is keen to find people who “share our views and share our values” and increase trading with them. “In a perfect world, we would maintain our relationships with the U.S. We would maintain openness, but we’re going to do what’s right for us, which is make sure we trade more with like-minded countries like Germany.” Trump has in the past months repeatedly threatened his northern neighbor’s sovereignty in a string of comments about annexing Canada as the U.S.’s “51st state.” Both countries have also been at odds over trade, although Prime Minister Mark Carney has recently changed course by scrapping some retaliatory tariffs. Hodgson said he was surprised by the long-term demand for LNG — typically seen as climate-unfriendly and a “transition fuel” — by German industry, but attributed this to increased demand, including from artificial intelligence. “They believe that there will be more LNG required and for longer as a transition fuel,” he added. Berlin also wants to shift its industry away from reliance on Russia and China. While no official announcement has been made, Carney on Tuesday said Ottawa is two weeks away from announcing major investments, including “a new port, effectively,” on Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba. He said it would open up “enormous” opportunities to ship LNG and critical minerals from Canada’s east coast. Mike Blanchfield contributed to this report from Ottawa.

LONDON — Ukrainian campaigners have demanded Keir Starmer’s government cancel all procurement contracts with suppliers that maintain links to Russian fossil fuels. Their call — set out Wednesday in a letter to Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds — comes after POLITICO revealed No. 10 Downing St., and many other Whitehall buildings, are supplied with gas by TotalEnergies Gas & Power, a U.K. subsidiary of French fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies. TotalEnergies still imports Russian gas to the U.K.’s European neighbors. The government’s contract with the firm, potentially worth up to £8 billion, “undermines the U.K.’s public commitment to ending dependence on Putin’s bloody oil and gas,” the campaign groups wrote. “It sets an example which profiteering companies have been only too happy to follow,” the letter said. “This in turn has undermined the entire Western sanctions regime.” A government spokesperson said: “All government contracts are openly published online, and follow all U.K. sanctions and regulations. Like most U.K. suppliers, TotalEnergies purchases gas from the U.K. domestic open market, where the presence of Russian gas is extremely unlikely.” The campaigners’ letter is signed by seven Ukraine-based and pro-Ukrainian groups. It calls on Thomas-Symonds — the minister with oversight of the government’s procurement body, Crown Commercial Service — to disclose all Whitehall contracts with TotalEnergies, commit to ending procurement from suppliers that maintain Russian energy ties, and set out a “clear plan for transitioning government departments to clean, conflict-free energy sources.” Iryna Ptashnyk, a senior researcher at Razom We Stand, the Ukrainian campaign group that coordinated the letter, said it was “indefensible” that British taxpayers’ money is flowing to TotalEnergies. “The U.K. government must urgently show leadership [and] end these contracts,” she said. TotalEnergies says it only supplies Russian gas to Europe from the Yamal liquefied natural gas complex in Siberia under long-term contractual arrangements, which predate Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and which it cannot break. Gas supplied under TotalEnergies Gas & Power’s contracts with the U.K. government is procured on the domestic market, so it is highly unlikely any of it originated in Russia. In line with the U.K.’s ban, the company does not import Russian LNG directly to the U.K. But campaigners and Labour members of parliament have said the government’s deal with the firm — secured in 2023 under the Conservative government — undermines the U.K.’s otherwise hard-line stance on Russia’s fossil fuel trade, which the Kremlin uses to finance its war against Ukraine.   The Bank of England and — beyond the capital — local council offices, NHS hospitals and schools likewise buy gas from TotalEnergies Gas & Power, via the CCS contract and other lucrative public sector procurement deals. Stephen Hoffman, deputy director of UK Friends of Ukraine, said that British government buildings “should not be heated with gas that comes from a company with such deep ties to Russia’s fossil fuel industry.” The government spokesperson said: “We are making the U.K. a clean energy superpower to get off the roller coaster of fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators like Putin, replacing that with clean homegrown power we control, and have ended all imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.” This story has been updated to include a government response.

BRUSSELS — The EU’s bureaucracy-slashing crusade is coming for rules meant to bottle up methane — a climate-warming, air-polluting gas. The argument is one that’s become commonplace in Europe: The rules are a good idea, but will impose unnecessary, contradictory and confusing requirements on EU firms that need a helping hand. In this instance, it’s EU fuel importers in the crosshairs. Starting in 2027, they’ll face penalties for importing fuel that doesn’t comply with the new methane emission rules. There’s fear that might disadvantage companies bringing in U.S. fuel — just as Europe seeks to buy more of it to both placate the Trump administration and quit Russian energy. In response, there’s a mounting push to revise the rules before they fully take effect. Seven countries — mostly in Central and Eastern Europe — are now circulating a proposal to trim the monitoring and reporting requirements for companies. The fossil fuel industry is eagerly supportive. The issue will come to a head on Monday, when energy ministers gather in Luxembourg for a meeting. In typical EU fashion, the goal is to find a compromise solution, said two diplomats granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.   To proponents, the revisions are a common-sense way to preserve the EU’s green ambition while not crippling companies’ economic fortunes. To skeptics, however, it’s merely the fossil fuel industry, yet again, trying to gut climate-friendly legislation in favor of profit. Either way, the outcome will reverberate across the EU-U.S. trade war and Europe’s campaign to sap Russia’s energy profits.  METHANE, MEET TRADE The EU’s methane rules were initially designed to curtail leakage in the bloc’s fossil fuel supply chain. The gas spews into the atmosphere during fuel and coal production, acting as a potent pollutant and the second-highest contributor to global warming after CO2. The regulations require EU fossil fuel importers and producers to measure, monitor, report and verify these methane emissions, while working to reduce them. Earlier this year, however, rules were swept into EU-U.S. trade talks after President Donald Trump demanded Europe swallow billions more in American energy. Industry groups are now arguing that the law must be redone to ease that consumption. “The EU is clearly keen to buy more American LNG,” said François-Régis Mouton, the European director of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers. “But then at the same time, they put in place a methane emission regulation that totally jeopardizes this. We’re doing everything to reopen the methane regulation.” The gas spews into the atmosphere during fuel and coal production, acting as a potent pollutant and the second-highest contributor to global warming after CO2. | Teresa Suarez/EPA Ahead of Monday’s energy ministers’ meeting, EU capitals have been preparing a consensus document that presses the European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels, to at least review the methane rules. A draft of the document, seen by POLITICO, asks the Commission to “speedily assess” whether to pare back several energy laws, including the methane regulation. And it argues the rules “might impact the cooperation with economic operators from outside of the EU” — likely a veiled reference to the U.S. But it stops short of recommending specific changes. The seven EU countries want to go further. They recommend specific changes to the penalty system and exemptions for some importers “in light of the new geopolitical context.” They also call for “flexibilities” to help bolster domestic gas production and identify several “redundant” measuring and monitoring rules they suggest dropping.  But they don’t suggest the EU completely revise the legislation, as industry lobbyists are demanding. That middle-ground thinking is closer to the Commission’s public statements on the subject. EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen insisted last week that Brussels will not weaken the law’s ambition — but he did signal a willingness to tweak its implementation. “We can see in the implementation [if] there are things that could be done better, in a different way, as long as it does not hurt the reduction targets,” he told POLITICO in an interview last week. “But we are not going to reopen it or take it back, backtrack it or anything like that.” Still, green groups are exasperated that yet another climate-friendly regulation may get trimmed under the guise of keeping companies “competitive.” Already this year, Brussels has proposed trims, revisions and exemptions on everything from corporate sustainability requirements to a carbon border tax.  EU officials argue this will mostly reduce paperwork and redundancies while preserving green ambition. But the changes would inevitably scale back numerous requirements. Methane is no different, argued Esther Bollendorff, senior gas policy coordinator at Climate Action Network Europe.  The proposed revision “aims to clear the way for more gas deals with the U.S.,” said Bollendorff. “It is unacceptable to dismantle the EU’s legislative framework based on industry lobbying.”

LONDON — Britain’s undersea infrastructure is highly vulnerable to Russian sabotage. That’s the stark warning from defense and energy experts ahead of the country’s major strategic defense review, expected next week. They warn that critical gas pipelines, power lines and data cables are the “soft belly of British security” — leaving the country exposed to potentially “catastrophic” sabotage at the hands of Russia or other enemies. The British government — which is hiking defense spending — said last month that it will address the threat to pipelines and other undersea infrastructure as part of its review, expected Monday. It comes amid rising tensions with Putin’s Russia, and at a time when Europe is already on alert over a spate of potential sabotage incidents affecting subsea cables and pipelines. But U.K. experts, including former senior government officials, believe the dangers are being underestimated. In an interview with POLITICO, Grant Shapps, who served as both energy and defense secretary in the last U.K. government from 2022 to 2024, said “complacency” about the problem was “genuinely worrying.” “Our undersea infrastructure is a sort of soft belly of British security, and not enough is being done,” Shapps said.  “It’s not a question of if there’ll be a problem at some point, it’s when there’s a problem. This should be a much higher concern for the government. And I don’t just mean that it’s placed on a risk register somewhere. … [We need] a national endeavor, a national plan to protect our undersea infrastructure.” NORD STREAM STYLE Undersea infrastructure is “one area” the defense review will examine, ministers have said. The U.K. and its allies have already increased naval patrols and increased monitoring to combat threats to infrastructure. But while much of the political focus has centered on data cables, security and energy experts warned that the greatest risks could come from an attack on a gas pipeline — like the mysterious 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea. The U.K. is more dependent than most G7 countries on gas to warm homes and provide electricity. More than half of demand is met by imports, chiefly from Norway, and most Norwegian imports come via a single pipeline — the 715-mile long Langeled, which was built in the 2000s and remains one of the country’s vital energy arteries. But while much of the political focus has centered on data cables, security and energy experts warned that the greatest risks could come from an attack on a gas pipeline — like the mysterious 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea. | Stefan Sauer/EFE via EPA “Langeled is our single biggest point of weakness,” said Adam Bell, a former Whitehall head of energy strategy, now director of policy at the Stonehaven consultancy. “It doesn’t mean we would all keel over and die if it were blown up — but it means everything gets a lot more expensive quickly. You move toward a risk of rationing [the gas supply].” While the odds of an attack are “pretty low,” the impact would be “catastrophic,” said Jack Richardson, who was an adviser to former Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho under the last Conservative government and is now an associate fellow at the Council for Geostrategy and head of policy at Octopus Energy. “There is no other way of putting it. If Langeled gets knocked out we’re in massive trouble as a country,” he said. Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow in sea power at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said Putin’s Russia had “invested fairly considerable resources into capabilities that could be used to sabotage critical national infrastructure.” An open attack on U.K. infrastructure would be an act of war, meaning any such attempt by Russia would likely be covert. But the government should be alive to the risks that might unfold “on day one” of a potential conflict or “in the transition from crisis to conflict,” he said, should Russia seek to cripple the U.K.’s energy supply before hostilities even began. “Given that’s a narrow window of opportunity for them, they’d probably go after areas where they think there are minimal redundancies,” Kaushal added. “Langeled is an obvious example. … I definitely see that as an important part of their approach to the opening days of a conflict or the build-up from a crisis to a conflict.” NETWORK EMERGENCY The U.K.’s ability to weather any attack would largely depend on wider questions of supply and demand, including whether the country was experiencing a cold snap, how much gas was held in storage, and whether more liquefied natural gas (LNG) — super-cooled gas that can be traded around the world via tankers — could be procured on the international market. The U.K.’s biggest LNG supplier is the United States. “The big risk is that you lose Langeled and the U.S. stops sending LNG cargoes, which is painfully plausible,” said Bell. “We could probably endure one but not both without rationing.” The reliability of U.S. support in that scenario is “impossible to know” and “depends on what goes through Trump’s head at 3 a.m.,” Shapps said. If sufficient quantities of gas could not be found to replace lost supply — for example, in the event of an attack on multiple pipelines — a Network Gas Supply Emergency could be declared. These procedures are enshrined in law but have never been triggered since the U.K. gas network was built in the 1960s. Initially, gas power stations could be shut down, leading to power cuts. These could be turned back on again quickly when the gas supply returned to normal, but in more extreme scenarios, factories and businesses — and, as a last resort, some households — could be cut off from the gas network entirely. The U.K.’s biggest LNG supplier is the United States. | Olivier Hoslet/EFE via EPA Energy industry experts, granted anonymity to discuss crisis planning, said in the event of such a drastic step, individual engineers would be required to reconnect each home to the gas network safely. It could take months before the network was back to normal, they said.  Ireland, which is dependent on gas imports from Britain, would also be badly affected. The U.K.’s latest National Risk Register, published earlier this year, contains a “reasonable worst-case scenario” of a terror attack on gas infrastructure that leads to “rolling power cuts lasting up to three hours,” and predicts that “restoration of the affected gas infrastructure could take approximately three months.” Asked what he considered the most dangerous sabotage scenarios for the U.K., Shapps said he was “cautious about saying what my ‘lay awake at night’ greatest fears were, because it would lead somebody to the answer.” “It’s unlikely that all our gas pipelines will be cut at the same time. But [let’s] argue in this case they were and we had zero gas — you’d look to bring in more LNG, you try to compensate in a whole variety of different ways. I think the most serious attack [would be] a really combined attack of energy and on data cables — then you’re in a different level of difficult.” GET OFF GAS The U.K. still meets around half its gas demand through domestic supplies from the North Sea, but the quantities left in the ground are diminishing. Richardson and Bell both argue that in the long-term, the way for the U.K. to guarantee its gas security is to reduce dependence on these fossil fuels. The Labour government plans to cut gas from the power system almost entirely by 2030, but Richardson argued ministers should also “be doing way more on the consumption of gas, particularly for heat.” “The simple answer is, you’ve got to diversify as much as possible, including away from oil and gas,” Shapps agreed, but added that in the short term ministers should drop plans to ban new gas exploration licenses in the North Sea and eke out as much as possible from domestic supplies.  “It is completely idiotic and based on ideology to stop digging our own oil and gas,” he said. A government spokesperson said: “Our priority will always be maintaining our national security, and protecting subsea and offshore infrastructure.  “Alongside our NATO and Joint Expeditionary Force allies, we are strengthening our response to ensure ships and aircraft cannot operate in secrecy near the U.K. or NATO territory, harnessing new technologies like AI and coordinating patrols with our allies.” Gassco, the Norwegian firm that operates the Langeled pipeline, did not respond to a request for comment.

BRUSSELS — The European Union wants its members to stop funding Russia’s war in Ukraine. And it’s done with asking nicely. An ambitious new strategy launched by the EU’s executive on Tuesday would, if implemented, effectively end Moscow’s lucrative gas sales to the continent in 2027 and require gas firms to break contracts with the Kremlin. That sets the stage for a major showdown between Brussels and the handful of leaders still pushing Russian energy. Yet while EU officials are talking tough, questions instantly arose on Tuesday over the practicality of the proposal and whether countries would actually enforce it. The plan puts countries like Hungary and Slovakia directly in the EU’s crosshairs. Both have unabashedly kept pumping Russian fuel throughout the war, helped block further energy sanctions in Brussels, and pushed back against support for Ukraine. On Tuesday, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen stressed that unlike sanctions, the upcoming proposals would not require unanimous support to pass — meaning EU countries could overrule Hungarian and Slovak objections. “I hope that everybody will move forward, obviously, but if they don’t, that is also OK,” he told reporters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. “That is also part of the EU, that sometimes the majority makes decisions when necessary.” And if reluctant countries still don’t comply, Jørgensen said: “We of course have the normal procedures of how to deal with that.” The forceful message caught some diplomats by surprise, even as they said questions still needed answering. “I’m quite impressed,” one diplomat said. “I’m not compassionate for Hungary, and … for Slovakia, as well.” Another credited Brussels with finally ensuring “the message is clear,” even if it still needs to give “assurance” that the plan is “legally feasible.” BAD NEWS FOR BRUSSELS’ BAD BOYS? For three years the EU has granted a few countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, numerous carve-outs to get their energy penalties approved. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak leader Robert Fico are using those loopholes to keep Russian gas and oil supplies flowing, leveraging what were intended as temporary exemptions to cash in on the wartime energy trade through transit fees and selling fuel on the open market. In September, Hungary struck a deal with neighboring Ukraine to ensure it could still receive deliveries of Russian pipeline crude, while Slovakia has repeatedly tried to get Brussels to help it in a dispute with Kyiv after the country’s gas supplies from Moscow were cut off. Now, experts say, they could finally face the costs of Moscow’s full-blown war. “Hungary and Slovakia are landlocked countries, so it could be expensive for them to tap into seaborne shipments of liquefied natural gas,” said Laura Page, lead gas analyst at intelligence firm Kpler. “We know that the Central and Eastern European area has loads of pipeline bottlenecks, so there are issues with them finding alternatives.” Jonathan Stern, founder of the gas program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, warned that Hungary and Slovakia would “want to be compensated” for the costs of finding supplies elsewhere.  Fico pounced on that talking point before Tuesday’s plan was even announced. Brussels, he said on Monday, is “for purely political reasons, creating conditions for further increases in gas prices.” Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Péter Szijjártó latched onto it as well Tuesday evening, calling the plan on X a “serious mistake” that “threatens energy security, drives up prices & violates sovereignty.” Jørgensen insisted that the European Commission, the EU’s executive, would help countries divest — and argued that internal estimates showed the bloc overall wouldn’t see higher prices.  “We do not neglect the fact that for some countries, this will be a harder transition than for others,” he said. The Commission, Jørgensen added, will help “using the different tools that we have, so that no countries are hit too hard from this” — though he was vague on specifics. UNLIKELY BEDFELLOWS It’s not just the two most Kremlin-friendly EU countries who are facing the music. Energy companies will also have to comply with the new rules if they’re adopted. A spokesperson for French firm TotalEnergies, which has hinted it could return to doing business with Russia after the war in Ukraine ends, said it would not comment on “political fiction” in a statement to POLITICO.  The firm insisted it would meet its “duty to contribute to the security of Europe’s gas supply … under long-term contracts that it must honour as long as European governments do not impose sanctions against Russian gas.” Indeed, it’s not yet clear exactly how Brussels’ plan would work in practice.  “Where will the data be reported to? And who will be monitoring enforcement? What will the penalties be? Do we trust the Bulgarians or other pro-Russian governments to say where they import gas from?” wondered Aura Sabadus, a gas markets expert at commodities giant ICIS. Brussels argued that the proposals will be legally robust. According to one EU official, the ban would allow firms to declare force majeure — breaking their contracts — due to an unforeseeable event (like sanctions). “Believe me,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, “we know very well what we want [and] how we can do this in a safe manner that is legally solid, that avoids litigation risk, that avoids economic risk for the market participants and suppliers.” The official added: “It’s a trade policy, and like any other trade policy where we choose our partners … if we have a problem with one partner, we react to it.” Lithuanian Energy Minister Žygimantas Vaičiūnas, whose country has long pushed for more Russian energy restrictions, predicted a “smooth adoption and implementation,” calling the move “good news.” Things get complicated, though, when security concerns enter the equation. What if a country says it can’t enforce the law for national security reasons? “Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Bulgaria — they’re going to produce a very nice plan where they’ll put some milestones and targets,” said Martin Vladimirov, director of energy and geoeconomics at the Center for the Study of Democracy. “But ultimately their politicians will insist it is too risky for their security of supply and ignore the plan, just as they have done with other plans on the phaseout of coal or on renewables.” In the meantime, he added, “Russia is gaining billions.” Alexandre Léchenet contributed to this report from Paris.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive will soon unveil legislation to end all Russian gas imports by the end of 2027. The goal is at the core of a plan that the European Commission presented on Tuesday. The Commission said it will release legislation next month to ban new gas contracts with Russia — a prohibition that would kick in at the end of 2025 for short-term market purchases, and at the end of 2027 for long-term contracts. The plan will similarly target Russian oil, but with less-binding measures. And it will go after Russian nuclear supplies, proposing upcoming measures and laws to shun Russian nuclear fuel and uranium imports. The move sets EU officials up for a clash with countries less keen to lose supplies of historically cheaper Russian imports, like Hungary and Slovakia. While the Commission can propose laws, they have to then go through extensive negotiations with EU capitals and the European Parliament.  But the barrage of proposals does send a signal about Brussels’ commitment to quitting Moscow’s fuel, even as appetite for strong sanctions dwindles, Russian gas imports rise and U.S. President Donald Trump raises the spectre of revived business ties with Moscow. FINALIZING THE DIVORCE The new strategy is the latest step in a years-long EU campaign to end energy ties with Russia after its all-out invasion in 2022. But it lands as the bloc strains to sustain that momentum, with high energy prices denting economic growth and some politicians and firms calling for a return to Russian imports. The EU has so far slashed its reliance on Moscow’s pipeline gas supplies by around two-thirds, and banned seaborne imports of coal and oil. But the bloc continues to rely on Moscow for uranium supplies and buys significant volumes of supercooled liquefied natural gas (LNG) arriving via ship. Last year, the EU still leaned on Russia for 19 percent of its gas imports, according to the text, while buying 13 million tons of pipeline oil supplies and 2,800 tons of nuclear fuel from Moscow.  And in 2025 alone, the EU has bought 6 million tons of Russian LNG worth more than €2.5 billion, according to data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air think tank. As part of its plan, Brussels will propose reporting requirements on firms to detail the volume and duration of their Russian energy contracts and ask countries to offer plans this year to phase out Moscow-linked supplies. EU officials will also beef up an existing scheme that leverages the bloc’s joint gas purchasing power to bring down prices. The Commission’s plan also vows to “continue its discussions with reliable suppliers,” most notably including the U.S., which wants the EU to buy more of its LNG. The two sides have yet to reach any deal, however. The document notes that 170 billion cubic meters of new LNG capacity are set to come online globally by 2027, making it easier to shun Russian supplies for other alternatives. In parallel, the EU executive will increase efforts to electrify its economy and consider expanding a platform for companies to jointly purchase supplies like biomethane, to replace supplies of traditional natural gas. NUCLEAR IS NIGH The new plan also targets the bloc’s lingering nuclear ties to Moscow, which supplies a fifth of the EU’s raw uranium and 38 percent of its enrichment capacity. Five countries — Finland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic — still rely on Russian-built reactors. To break that dependency, Brussels will present a new legal bill next month making enriched uranium from Russia “economically less viable” through trade measures, the plan states, and separately restrict new contracts signed between the EU’s uranium supply agency and Moscow. It will also aim to clamp down on sanctions loopholes, including efforts to restrict Russia’s so-called shadow fleet — its mushrooming army of aging vessels with little-known insurance. The Commission said it wants to ink new deals with countries legally responsible for those tankers, allowing them to conduct “pre-authorized boarding operations” of the ships. For now, the plan’s recommendations are non-binding, and its suggestions for future proposals will require the backing of a majority of EU countries before they are agreed. And any ban on imports is likely to come up against stiff opposition, notably from Hungary and Slovakia’s Russia-friendly governments. Budapest and Bratislava have repeatedly torpedoed efforts to sanction Moscow’s atomic and gas sectors, while continuing to rely on Russia for over 80 percent of their oil and buying gas through the Russia-to-Turkey subsea TurkStream pipeline.   EU countries are set to discuss the proposal for the first time on Thursday.