Oil prices in Europe have been surging since the start of the conflict in Ukraine amid fears that the European Union (EU) may ban energy imports from Russia.
The EU is eager to shake off its reliance on Russian energy by proposing new plans to diversify energy supplies to be independent of Russian energy.
EU member countries were split over the ban as their dependence on energy imports from Russia varies.
On the whole, Russian energy takes a significant proportion of the EU’s annual imports.
According to Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, Russia accounted for more than 40 percent of natural gas and 30 percent of crude oil imported by the EU in 2019.
At an EU leaders’ summit in France earlier, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania called for a ban on Russian energy imports but were bluntly rejected by Germany and some other countries that simply cannot cut off the energy imports from Russia.
“Europe’s supply of energy for heating, mobility, electricity and industry currently cannot be secured in any other way,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in defending his rejection.
