EU states agree on 15% gas cut target

BRUSSELS－European Union members have reached an agreement on a 15 percent voluntary reduction in the use of natural gas in response to concerns over the reliability of supplies from Russia, officials announced on Tuesday.

Jozef Sikela, the Czech Republic's minister of industry and trade, presided over an exceptional meeting of the Council of the European Union on energy, with the EU preparing for possible gas supply disruptions over the winter.

"Member states agreed to reduce their gas demand by 15 percent compared to their average consumption in the past five years, between 1 August 2022 and 31 March 2023, with measures of their own choice," the Council of the EU said in a statement.

"Possible measures include reducing gas consumed in the electricity sector, measures to encourage fuel switch in industry, national awareness raising campaigns, targeted obligations to reduce heating and cooling and market-based measures such as auctioning between companies," said the statement.

Under the ministerial agreement that was sealed in less than a week, the EU's member nations are free to decide how best to meet the 15 percent reduction target.

France wants to save energy by turning down office thermostats in winter and ensuring that air conditioners in public buildings and shops are used more efficiently.

Exemptions are provided for member states that have already exceeded their gas storage filling target, those whose industries are heavily dependent on gas as feedstock, and those whose gas consumption has increased by at least 8 percent over the past years compared with the average of the past five years.

Exemptions are also allowed for countries that might find themselves particularly exposed to difficulties from certain cuts. The ministers diluted elements of the original proposal, including exemptions for island countries like Ireland, Cyprus and Malta, which don't have as many energy alternatives.

In another development reflecting tensions between Russia and the West, the country's space chief on Tuesday said the country will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost.

The announcement, while not unexpected, throws into question the future of the 24-year-old space station, with experts saying it would be extremely difficult－perhaps a "nightmare", by one reckoning－to keep it running without the Russians. NASA and its partners had hoped to continue operating it until 2030.

"The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made," Yuri Borisov, appointed this month to lead the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. He added: "I think that by that time we will start forming a Russian orbiting station."

The space station has long been a symbol of post-Cold War international teamwork in the name of science but is now one of the last areas of cooperation between US and Russia.

Agencies - Xinhua