Europe’s purchase of Russian energy cannot be stopped ‘overnight’, argues PM

When quizzed this afternoon over Russian gas and oil imports, Asked about energy the prime minister said such flows could not be shut down “overnight”.

”You can’t simply close down use of oil and gas overnight even from Russia, that’s not something that every country around the world can do. We can go fast in the UK, other countries can go fast, but there are different dependencies,” he argued during a joint press conference with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte.

“What we need to do is make sure that we’re all moving in the same direction, we all share the same assumptions and that we accelerate that move and I think that is what you’re going to see.

“Actually I see no inconsistency by the way in moving away from dependency on Russian hydrocarbons to moving away from dependency on hydrocarbons altogether. You can see how this will encourage the world to go for green solutions wherever possible, but clearly there is going to be a transitional period, we’re going to have to look for supply, we’re going to have to look for alternative supply,” he went on.

 Rutte reiterated Johnson’s point, saying that Europe’s heavy use of Russian hydrocarbons was a “painful reality” and that any plans to decouple must be “gradual”..

This morning the UK’s minister for Europe and North America suggested that  a ban on Russian oil and gas in Britain could “quite possibly” go ahead. 

However, James Cleverly went on to argue that it would be “more significant” if Europe at large were to increase efforts to decouple itself from Russian energy reliance.