Energy independence: EU to fully ban Russian energy imports by 2027
The European Union is undertaking an ambitious strategy of entirely ending its dependency on Russian gas imports by the end of 2027 (Lamche, 2025). It is part of a plan launched by the European Commission back in 2022, called REPowerEU, which initially had the objective of reducing these imports by two-thirds. Yesterday, however, the Commission published a detailed roadmap to completely ban all remaining imports of Russian gas and liquefied natural gas to EU members (European Commision, 2025).
This is a new development in an effort that began as a response to Russia’s weaponisation of energy following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (Lamche, 2025). It has been a priority of the Union since then, and the new roadmap is an acknowledgement of the amount of progress so far, but also of the persistent challenges that had remained unaddressed.
Background: REPowerEU
At the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia supplied 45% of the EU’s gas imports. The following map shows the reliance of the EU on these imports:
Recognizing the vulnerability this posed to member states, the Commission launched its REPowerEU Plan in May 2022 (European Commission, 2022).
REPowerEU as a framework has three key pillars: save energy, diversify energy supplies and produce clean energy. It also has the objective of safeguarding EU citizens and firms from energy shortages and volatility in energy prices (European Commission, 2022).
The plan was additionally supported by schemes such as the EU Energy Platform and AggregateEU, which facilitated joint gas procurement, making use of the EU’s market power to secure more favourable terms and diverse supplies (European Commission, 2022).
Progress so far has been notable. According to the report, EU gas imports from Russia have fallen from 45% in 2021 to 19% in 2024. The share of Russian oil imports also declined from 27% at the beginning of 2022 to 3% now (European Commission, 2025).
The New Roadmap
Despite the significant progress, the EU’s energy commissioner declared that the bloc had “come far, but not far enough” (Lamche, 2025). The objective is to reduce gas imports to zero and to reduce significant amounts of imported LNG from Russia, which are a continued risk to the EU’s energy security and resilience. Furthermore, a rebound in imports of gas from Russia into the EU observed in 2024 did not go unnoticed (European Commision, 2025), and highlighted the need for the Commission to keep putting pressure on member states and introduce a more definitive strategy.
Thus, the New REPowerEU roadmap offers a gradual step-by-step phase-out of Russian gas, oil and nuclear imports. The central pillar of the roadmap is the clear shift of intentions to action, through the proposal of legislation in June 2025. These would include the introduction of binding prohibitions on member states signing new gas short-term contracts with Russia by the end of this year, and all existing long-term contracts by the end of 2027 (European Commision, 2025).
The roadmap also outlines the following key points of action to succeed in the comprehensive exit:
More transparency and monitoring of gas contract and imports from Russia
Capping new contracts for nuclear materials and implementation of trade measures on Russian enriched uranium imports.
Requirement for all member states to submit, by the end of 2025, their national plans to reduce their dependence on Russian energy imports.
Improve tracking of Russia’s ‘shadow fleets’- obscurely owned and insured oil tankers used to evade EU sanctions (European Commission, 2025).
Moreover, it reiterates the required shift to more “reliable suppliers”, for example the US for LNG imports (Lamche, 2025).
Strategic Autonomy
This roadmap to achieve a comprehensive exit, and of course, the initial REPowerEU Plan itself, are part of the EU’s broader strategy of strategic autonomy. Initially formulated and applied to EU defence and industrial policy, strategic autonomy now extends to almost all policy areas of the economic bloc and involves targets such as decreasing digital infrastructure dependencies (e.g. semiconductors) on countries outside the EU.
In the REPowerEU Plan, it consists of the objective of transitioning towards less reliance and more security through an increasingly domestically sourced energy system. In the EU’s energy policy more broadly, strategic autonomy, aside from supplier diversification, it includes increasing renewable capacity generation, innovation in sustainability and technological sovereignty for the generation of clean tech (European Commission, 2022).
Challenges and opposition
Despite the progress, the Plan as well as the roadmap has some challenges remaining.
First, there is the standard issue of resistance from member states. In this case, there is expected objections from Hungary and Slovakia, which have in the past three years utilized exemptions and other measures to continue to import Russian fuel (Gavin, Jack, & Coi, 2025). While sanctions require unanimity, such proposals in the new legislature can perhaps only be passed through a simple majority vote, allowing for the override of holdout countries. But questions remain if the roadmap is implementable and more importantly, enforceable.
Furthermore, there are other geopolitical challenges. For example, the renewed economic ties with Moscow under the new US administration (Gavin, Jack, & Coi, 2025), as well as the basic market dynamics of the industry, by which most countries want to continue to purchase energy at the lowest cost, even if ethically it is not the finest choice. This is precisely why many have criticised the unfortunate reality that a lot of the progress in the reduction of imports from Russia from the REPowerEU Plan, is actually more convoluted in practice. It has been identified by experts, although denied by country officials, that many Russian imports have simply been re-routed through other countries not subject to sanctions, like India, to bypass the EU’s policies.
Unfortunately, the EU is well accustomed to the fact that more targets do not translate automatically to more implementation.
In conclusion, the EU’s roadmap to end all Russian energy imports by the end of 2027, marks a significant renewed commitment by the bloc in its energy security and strategic autonomy strategy. In particular, the announcement of legally binding prohibitions to be proposed by June 2025 is of great significance. However, more targets do not translate automatically to more implementation, and the plan hinges on member state agreement, majority voting and, if passed, the common problems of implementation and non-compliance. The roadmap is therefore fraught with political, economic and governance challenges which are, in reality, more complex than some targets on paper.
References
European Commision. (2025, May 6). REPowerEU roadmap. Retrieved from Energy, Climate Change, Environment: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/strategy/repowereu-roadmap_en
European Commission. (2022, May 18). REPowerEU. Retrieved from commission.europa.eu: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/repowereu-affordable-secure-and-sustainable-energy-europe_en
European Commission. (2025). Roadmap to fully end EU dependency on Russian energy. Directorate-General for Communication. Retrieved from https://commission.europa.eu/news/roadmap-fully-end-eu-dependency-russian-energy-2025-05-06_en
Gavin, G., Jack, V., & Coi, G. (2025, May 7). EU gears up for fight with Russian energy holdouts. Retrieved from Politico: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-russian-energy-holdouts-ukraine-war/
Lamche, A. (2025, May 6). EU plans to end Russian gas imports by end of 2027. Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04547pr9vqo
Written by Laura Rebollo
