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Die EU-Kommission gab am Donnerstag (28. Juli) bekannt, eine umfassende Prüfung der geplanten Übernahme von VOO und Brutélé durch Orange gemäß den EU-Fusionskontrollvorschriften eingeleitet zu haben. 

Italian right-wing League leader Matteo Salvini's ties with Russia came under scrutiny again Thursday following questions about what led to the collapse of prime minister Mario Draghi's government, AFP reports. La Stampa newspaper revealed that a Russian diplomat met Salvini's aide in May, and asked if any of the ministers from Salvini's League party intended to resign. The League pulled out of the government last week, along with other parties.

Credit: EBRD

By Vanora Bennett
LONDON, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

Until Russia went to war on Ukraine in February, Ukraine was known as the “breadbasket of Europe”. One of the largest grain exporters in the world, it provided about 10 per cent of globally traded wheat and corn and 37 per cent of sunflower oil, United Nations figures show. The yellow and blue of its flag mimic its rolling golden fields under blue summer skies.

The war has darkened this picture beyond recognition.

Despite the conflict, Ukrainian farmers are still growing grain, at levels estimated to be around three-quarters of a normal year. But, with Russia blockading the Black Sea ports through which Ukraine would usually export about 5 million tonnes a month, the country is now struggling to get just 2 million tonnes a month out westward by choked road, rail and river routes.

This is not only an existential problem for Ukraine, whose grain exports are one of the biggest contributors to its economy, but also for the millions of people worldwide who would normally import and eat this grain. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that as many as 47 million people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are at risk of acute hunger.

Addressing this food security risk is a double challenge for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which works both in Ukraine and neighbouring countries affected by the war, and in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries which are struggling to import food.

Vanora Bennet. Credit: EBRD

Inside Ukraine, 18 million tonnes of grain from last year’s crop are waiting in siloes for export. Space is at a premium and the squeeze is getting worse. The figures become still more dizzying once you add in the winter wheat and barley crop now being harvested, and the spring crop including sunflower and corn that will also join the queue in a couple of months’ time.

“The biggest issue is storing the grain. There is some warehouse and silo capacity free, but not enough for the harvest taking place now. We’ve been told they are missing 15 million tonnes of capacity, even before the spring crop harvest that’s coming in in two months’ time,” says Jean-Marc Peterschmitt, EBRD Managing Director for Industry, Commerce and Agribusiness. “It is unclear how it will play out.”

“For now, the only solution is temporary storage – silo bags or floor storage or even storage in the field with some basic covers, which obviously will deteriorate the quality of grain,” says Natalia Zhukova, EBRD Director, Agribusiness. “Silo bags can pretty much preserve the quality for 12 months because they are hermetically sealed so infections or pests cannot develop inside. But simple silos without proper drying or ventilation will obviously have problems.”

“Getting grain out of the country and being able to store the harvest inside the country are the mirror image of each other, because whatever you get out is freeing up storage capacity for the next harvest,” adds Peterschmitt. “Getting it out so far has been not a great experience. But it’s vital to find more ways to do that.”

As the quantity of Ukrainian crops waiting for export and potentially rotting in siloes and fields increases, hopes that Ukraine could soon resume exports in something like their usual quantities rose briefly last week when a tenuous U.N.-brokered deal to lift the blockade on the key Ukrainian port of Odessa was agreed in Turkey on 22 July.

Less than 24 hours later, however, Russian cruise missiles hit Odesa. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the attack cast serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to the deal, accused Russia of “starving Ukraine of its economic vitality and the world of its food supply.”

Yet, by 25 July, Ukraine said it still hoped to start implementing the deal within as little as a week, and was making preparations including demining essential sea areas, and setting up naval corridors for the safe passage of merchant vessels and a coordination centre in Istanbul.

Still, for now, amidst the uncertainty, it’s back to working within the limits of wartime.

Within Ukraine, a significant part of the €1 billion of EBRD investment pledged for this year is earmarked to support domestic food security. As part of the EBRD’s Resilience and Livelihoods Framework (RLF), a €200 million multi-instrument Food Security Guarantee works across the food chain in Ukraine, both helping farmers buy fertiliser and retailers get food into the shops.

And there are other, smaller, freight transport options out of Ukraine for grain export if access to Black Sea ports continues to be blocked. The Danube River, whether in Ukraine or neighbouring Moldova or Romania, could be one option.

Throughput at Moldova’s Giurgiulesti Port on the Danube has already doubled in 2022. Another possibility might be supporting improvements to road and rail exports to help carry more freight overland.

In the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region where the EBRD also works, meanwhile, all countries rely on imports to make enough dietary energy available domestically. The level of reliance on Russian and Ukrainian grain is unusually high.

Food prices are currently at an all-time high, making sourcing scarce imports from elsewhere ruinously expensive.

As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s senior economist, Katya Krivonos, told a panel discussion at the EBRD Annual Meeting in May, Egypt, which has 5.4 million undernourished people, usually sources more than 40 per cent of its calorie imports from Russia and Ukraine.

“Climate conditions in SEMED don’t really allow them to grow grain. In arid countries, the question is how in the longer term to become more food secure, in a more sustainable way. We are looking at ways to help these countries find the commodities that they need,” says Iride Ceccacci, the EBRD’s head of Agribusiness Advisory.

In this region, the Bank is looking at expanding its work on agribusiness and food security beyond its current focus on the private sector to support SEMED countries to secure import of grains in this context of unprecedented high prices.

In Tunisia, 50 percent of all food calories are imported. Jordan imports approximately 90 percent of wheat and barley, which are essential staples and water intensive crops to produce. Morocco, which is generally less reliant on imports, is facing one of the worst droughts in decades.

In May, the EBRD joined forces with other international financial institutions – the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group – to formulate an IFI Action Plan to Address Food Insecurity.

“People in SEMED are very frustrated that they came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, having coped with it with a lot of resilience, and were looking forward to some positive growth.

But instead, they’re now getting this massive new hit, mainly through high food prices but also through high energy prices, which affect fertiliser prices so will also have an impact on domestic food production,” says Heike Harmgart, Managing Director, SEMED, at the EBRD.

She adds: “Now middle-class people in Egypt are buying less meat because food price inflation has been so high in the supermarket. And governments are worried because high food prices were one of the triggers of the Arab Spring in 2011, and there’s a very clear connection between political unrest and high bread prices”.

“What everyone wants to avoid is social unrest. The EBRD has been working on urgent food security response projects to support SEMED countries, with a first transaction now Board approved for Tunisia. These investments include technical assistance designed to promote sustainable solutions for grain supply chains in the region.”

Gérald Theis, Chairman of CereMed UK Ltd, a big grain trader, vividly describes working first with the supply problems of the Covid era, which raised prices and the threat of protectionism, and then the war on Ukraine, which began on 24 February.

“February 24 was like 9/11, or a tsunami,” he told the EBRD Annual Meeting’s food security panel. “We didn’t sleep much for a while. In eight days, we saw a move of nearly US$ 200 dollars per tonne – a percentage rise of 160 per cent.”

Asked what his sense was of where food security was heading next season, he replied: “I’m sorry to say I don’t know, if we speak about long-term. Today I would say a day is like a month used to be before. Nobody knows when this war will end or how it will end.”

“Even if it stopped tomorrow, we traders don’t think that things will go back to normal – there are too many issues with logistics, broken bridges and railways, silos and sanctions. In this environment, we believe prices will stay at a high level and it’s going to be extremely volatile.”

Source: EBRD

Vanora Bennett is EBRD Green spokeswoman / Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Georgia and Armenia

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Western sanctions are driving Russia toward "economic oblivion" despite reports to the contrary, a leading US university has said.

The Notre Dame cathedral in Paris is expected to reopen to worshippers and the public in 2024, culture minister Rima Abdul Malak said on Thursday, more than three years after its roof was destroyed in a massive blaze in 2019, AFP reports. The ministers said the clean-up phase of the restoration project had ended, allowing rebuilding work to get underway at the end of the summer.

Along a street in the historic center of Lima, 11-year-old Pedro makes chalk drawings on the sidewalk for at least four hours a day to bring some money home. He is one of thousands of children and adolescents in Peru who work as child laborers, which violates their human rights. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

In the afternoons he draws with chalk on the sidewalk of a downtown street in the Peruvian capital. Passersby drop coins into a small blue jar he has set out. He remains silent in response to questions from IPS, but a nearby ice cream vendor says his name is Pedro, he is 11 years old, and he draws every day on the ground for about four hours.

Pedro, too shy or scared to answer, is one of the children and adolescents between the ages of five and 17 engaged in child labor in Peru, a phenomenon that grew during the years of the pandemic due to the rise in poverty, which by 2021 affected a quarter of the population.

According to official figures, children and adolescents involved in child labor number 870,000 nationwide, some 210,000 more than in 2019, Isaac Ruiz, a social worker and director of the non-governmental Centre for Social Studies and Publications (Cesip), told IPS in an interview.

Cesip has been working for 46 years advocating for the rights of children and adolescents."For every year of education that a child loses, he or she also loses between 10 and 20 percent of income in his or her adult life; poverty is reproduced." -- Isaac Ruiz

Ruiz explained that in order to define child labor, two concepts must be separated. The first refers to the economic activities that children between five and 17 years of age perform in support of their families for payment or not, as dependent workers for third parties, or for themselves.

The second is work that violates their rights and must be eradicated, which is addressed by national laws and regulations in accordance with international human rights standards established by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other agencies.

The ILO classifies child labor as a violation of fundamental human rights, which is detrimental to children’s development and can lead to physical or psychological damage that will last a lifetime. Child labor qualifies as work that is harmful to the physical and mental development of children.

On the contrary, it is not child labor, according to the agency, when children or adolescents participate in stimulating activities, voluntary tasks or occupations that do not affect their health and personal development, nor interfere with their education. For example, helping parents at home or earning money doing a few chores or odd jobs.

The minimum working age in Peru is 14 years old. Work is classified as child labor when it is performed below that age, when it is dangerous by its very nature or because of the conditions in which it is performed, and when the workday exceeds the legally established limit, which is 24 hours per week if the child is 14 years old, and 36 hours per week if the child is between 15 and 17.

The worst forms of child labor are when adults use children and adolescents for criminal activities or exploit them commercially or sexually.

Juan Diego Carayonqui, 15, poses for a photo on the street where his home and the small store on its first floor are located in Huachipa, a low-income neighborhood on the outskirts of Lima. He works 49 hours a week in the small family business, longer than the hours legally stipulated for adolescents in Peru. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

According to figures from the government’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (Inei), 1,752,000 children and adolescents were working in 2021. That number was 2.6 percent higher than the pre-pandemic 25 percent recorded in 2019.

Of this total, 13.7 percent are engaged in hazardous activities, which means that 870,000 minors between the ages of five and 17 engage in work that poses a risk to their physical and mental health and integrity.

In this South American country of around 33,035,000 people, children and adolescents in this age range represent 19 percent, or about 6,400,000, of the population according to INEI data.

“Not all economic activities carried out by children and adolescents must be eradicated. If they have a formative role, for example helping out in a family business for an hour a day or on weekends, and they go to school, have time for their homework, to socialize, and for recreation, they will probably be learning about the business,” said Ruiz.

But, he added, “the situation changes when it becomes child labor, when the activities are hazardous.

“Child labor is when it is beyond their physical, emotional or mental capabilities and when it takes up too much of their time and competes negatively with education, homework and the possibility of recreation,” he explained.

As examples, he cited selling things on the street going from car to car, picking through waste in garbage dumps, carrying packages or crates in markets, doing domestic work, or working in mines or agricultural activities where they are exposed to toxic substances harmful to their health.

The government must accelerate the design and application of public policies for the eradication of child labor, Ruiz said.

“For every year of education that a child loses, he or she also loses between 10 and 20 percent of income in his or her adult life; poverty is reproduced,” he said.

The expert called for measures to correct this situation in order to prevent child workers from continuing to be left behind in terms of opportunities and rights.

“If I had children I wouldn’t make them work,” says Juan Diego Carayonqui, who since the age of seven has spent his afternoons working in their small family store to help his mother, with whom he poses in the shop where he spends a large part of his day. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

“I would not make my children work”

Juan Daniel Carayonqui is 15 years old and since the age of seven has been working in the small shop that operates out of his home, located in Huachipa, a poor hilly neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital with an estimated population of 32,000 inhabitants, mostly people who have come to the city from other parts of the country.

His mother, María Huamaní, arrived in Lima at the age of 10 from the central Andes highlands department of Ayacucho, fleeing the civil war that killed her mother and father. Orphaned, she was raised by aunts and uncles. Eventually she met the man who would become her husband and together they started a family. In their view, work is the way to progress in life.

In a park near his house, Carayonqui told IPS: “I started working when I was seven years old in the store, with simple tasks, memorizing the prices of the products. Then I gained experience and learned how to deal with customers, and now I work in the afternoons when I get out of school.”

Carayonqui is in his fourth year of high school, which he will finish in 2023, and his goal is to study biology at university. His dream is to travel around the country; he loves nature and dreams of discovering some unknown species and helping to bring new value to Peru’s biodiversity.

He has spent much of eight of his 15 years behind the counter of the store where he sells groceries and stationery products, from 2:00 in the afternoon until closing time, about seven hours a day. This adds up to 49 hours a week, so Carayonqui would officially be considered a victim of child labor.

But in his family’s view, work is the road to progress. His paternal grandmother, who also moved to Huachipa from the highlands, has a garden where she grows vegetables to sell at the wholesale market. Carayonqui helps her out on Wednesdays, carrying the heaviest bundles.

“My grandmother says that through work you overcome poverty and achieve your dreams, but I think it’s better to overcome it by studying,” he said.

Carayonqui knows that as a good son he must help his mother when she asks him to: “I have to help her because she needs me and because I love her.” But he also understands that spending his entire childhood and adolescence working has deprived him of focusing on his homework, of going out to play with his friends, of having fun.

He gets up every day at six in the morning, gets ready to go to school now that classrooms are open again this year post-pandemic, has breakfast and goes to school. He comes home at 1:30 p.m., eats lunch and by 2:00 p.m. he is at the store. His mother often leaves him in charge because she has other work to do.

If he has children, he will not do the same thing, he says. “I would encourage them to be responsible but I would not make them work, I would encourage them to study in order to get out of poverty,” he said.

Margoth Vásquez, a 17-year-old Peruvian teenager, worked 72 hours a week as a nanny and housekeeper during the pandemic to earn an income and cover her needs, she told IPS during an interview in a neighbor’s living room near her home on the outskirts of Lima. Her goal is to finish high school this year and begin to study nursing the following year. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Overexploitation

Margoth Vásquez also lives in Huachipa. She is 17 years old and was interviewed by IPS at the home of one of her mother’s friends. She wants to remodel her family home with what she earns as a nurse; her dream is to study nursing.

During the pandemic, she had to work to buy what she needed and pay off a debt. Her father, who doesn’t live with her and doesn’t pay alimony, gave her a chest of drawers for her birthday, which he didn’t pay for: she had to.

She took work caring for an eight-month-old baby and cleaning the family’s home from 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. In exchange for working as a housekeeper and nanny for more than 72 hours a week she earned about 150 dollars a month.

She worked there for a year and a half. But it was stressful because she could not find time to do her homework and turn it in (classes were online because of the pandemic). This year she will finish high school and next year she will apply to study nursing.

“I want to help my grandmother who raised me, take care of her, get married, have children. To have a good life,” she said.

German inflation increased in July driven by higher energy prices as Russia further reduced gas flows, Reuters reported. Consumer prices increased by 8.5 percent on the year, the federal statistics office said on Thursday. Energy prices were 35.7 percent higher in July against the same month last year, and food prices went up 14.8 percent in the EU's largest economy, both adding to high inflation, the statistics office said.

Húszan dolgoztak idén a Ticce alkotótáborban, Királyhelmecen. A tábor, melynek programjában két újítás is szerepelt, rögtönzött kiállítással ért véget.

Former Russian TV presenter Marina Ovsyannikova was fined 50,000 roubles (€803) on Thursday after being found guilty of discrediting the country's armed forces in social media posts condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine, Reuters reports. Ovsyannikova, who came to worldwide prominence in March for holding an anti-war placard live on air on Russian state TV, rejected the proceedings against her as "absurd".

Dozens of protestors booed Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday in Vienna for his racist speech over the weekend, which saw a strong rebuke from Washington. Orbán, meeting with Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer during a one-day visit, defended his comments against creating "peoples of mixed-race", saying they represented a "cultural, civilisational standpoint". "It happens sometimes that I speak in a way that can be misunderstood," Orbán told reporters.

Reki Jimu (51) has lived with HIV for nearly two decades. Here he shows a container of antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS support group members at Chitungwiza government hospital outside Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Jeffrey Moyo
CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe, Jul 29 2022 (IPS)

In 2001, when Reki Jimu was 30 years old, his wife died aged 27.

The now 51-year-old Jimu said the couple’s two sons died prematurely. Both were underweight and frail, although the couple had been previously blessed with a baby girl, Faith Jimu, who is now a 29-year-old mother of three.

Jimu was born in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province in Mazowe Citrus Estate, with his rural home located in the province’s Mukumbura area in Chigawo village.

Two years after his wife, Tendai Goba, died following a very long illness, which he said eroded her weight, Jimu was tested for HIV and found to be positive.

“My wife Tendai died in 2001, succumbing to AIDS, although then we had no proof she suffered from it. She had Kaposi’s sarcoma – a cancer associated with AIDS,” Jimu told IPS.

His diagnosis did not dampen his zeal to live – although he encountered a lot of discouragement from relatives, friends, and colleagues.

“When I started losing weight, people said I was being bewitched by my brother whom they claimed had goblins that were sucking out my blood,” Jimu said.

He said the back-biting started when his wife and two sons were still alive.

“Some naysayers were even blunt in their statements during the early days when my wife was sick, at the time our sons were alive. People said my sons were very thin because they had AIDS. We would hear this and never say anything in return. But of course, our sons died prematurely because they were all underweight (but) before we knew they had HIV,” said Jimu.

But thank God, said Jimu, the couple’s daughter, who was born before the couple contracted HIV/AIDS and has lived on without the disease and is now a parent.

Yet Jimu, even as his first wife kicked the bucket, has never given up on life.

Now residing in Chitungwiza, a town 25 kilometres southeast of Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, in 2003, soon after testing positive for HIV, Jimu immediately started taking antiretroviral treatment, and that has kept him going for almost two decades.

In fact, for close to two decades, 51-year-old Jimu has lived with HIV/AIDS, sticking to his antiretroviral treatment without fail.

Thanks to his belief in ARV treatment, now Jimu looks like any other healthy person.

“Look, I’m looking good. Nobody can tell I’m HIV positive. Nobody can even tell I’m taking ARV drugs unless I tell them myself,” bragged Jimu.

He has soldiered on with life despite being HIV positive.

In 2007, Jimu became the founder, leader and pastor of the Christian Fellowship Network Trust, a support group that he said has become pivotal in supporting people living with HIV and AIDS in Chitungwiza.

He has not stopped embracing life, and through the help of HIV/AIDS support groups, Jimu said he married again a year after he had tested positive.

Francisca Thomson, his second wife of the same age as him, is also living with HIV.

“Francisca is my queen, very beautiful girl, I can tell you, and we are so happy together,” boasted Jimu.

Jimu said he, like any other average person, has become a beacon of hope to many living with HIV.

He said he became open about his HVI/AIDS status at a time when the public loathed people like him and when HIV/AIDS stigma was rife.

“I am one of those people who used to appear on national television on an HIV/AIDS advert clip in which I was saying I didn’t cross the red traffic light… I am a pastor…  I am HIV positive, adverts of which were sponsored by Population Services International,” said Jimu

Now a known fighter against HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe, Jimu cannot hold back his gratitude for the Chitungwiza General Hospital here, which he said made him what he is today- an epic HIV/AIDS peer educator.

Zimbabwe has about 1,4 million people living with HIV/AIDS.

Living with HIV has not forced Jimu into a cocoon.

Instead, he said the condition has merely turned him into an ardent defender of many others.

“I’m now very active in offering routine counselling services and spiritual guidance to many who newly test positive for HIV and seeing me with the positive mindset I have. Many are adjusting quickly to their HIV-positive status and moving on with their lives,” said Jimu.

Yet, for Jimu, it has not been easy getting where he is now.

He said over the years, he has come face to face with stigma, saying many people around him were disgusted at merely seeing him sick.

Jimu said landlords quickly evicted him when they heard of his status.

“As a tenant at the many houses I have lived in, I would be quickly given notices to leave because people were afraid to live with me thinking I would just one day wake up dead in their homes or infect them with HIV. I would hear people gossiping about my sickness, some saying I was now a moving skeleton, some urging me to visit prophets for healing, some saying I must go back to the village and die there,” said Jimu.

Over the years, however, things have gotten better, with Jimu saying his relatives have begun to embrace him.

Yet, in the past, he had to contend with all the sneering and discrimination from both kith and kin.

“Being loathed and discriminated against were the things I have encountered in church, work and many other places. At many gatherings we would attend with my late wife, we would be made to take back seats as people were ashamed of having us occupying the front seats, obviously ashamed of how we looked because of the signs of sickness on us,” recalled Jimu.

But that is now a thing of the past.

As more and more people living with HIV are beginning to find it easier to live with the disease, Jimu has a message for them.

“I urge people who are HIV positive to take their medication during prescribed times without defaulting even when they feel they are now healthy and fit,” he said.

And he also carries an almost similar message for those on the brink of marriage.

“I urge couples to get tested for HIV before engaging in sex. If one is found positive, they can be assisted by health experts to live healthy lives without infecting each other with the disease,” said Jimu.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Az ország összes déli járására – Nyugat-Szlovákiában az északi járásokat kivéve minden járásra – másodfokú- vagy elsőfokú hőségriasztást (+35°C; +33/+34°C) adott ki péntek délutánra (13:00-18:00) a Szlovák Hidrometeorológiai Intézet (SHMÚ).

Az Európai Unió tagállamainak energiaügyekért felelős miniszterei elfogadták az Európai Bizottság gázmegtakarítást célzó javaslatát, melynek értelmében a tagországok kötelezettséget vállalnak arra, hogy a tél folyamán 15 százalékkal csökkentik a gázfelhasználást Európa energiaellátása biztonságának növelése érdekében – közölte az uniós tanács.

Az Energiaügyi Tanács rendelete szerint valamennyi EU-tagállam augusztus 1. és 2023. március 31. között 15 százalékkal csökkenti a gázfelhasználást, hogy megelőzzék az ukrajnai háború miatt fenyegető energiaválságot. A célok elérésére a tagállamok önkéntes alapon kötelezik el magukat, amennyiben viszont az Európai Bizottság az ellátás biztonságára vonatkozó “uniós riasztást” hirdetne ki, a gázkereslet-csökkentés kötelező valamennyi tagállam számára.

A gázfelhasználás csökkentésének célja, hogy már a tél beállta előtt, majd annak folyamán a tagországok gázkészleteket halmozzanak fel, hogy felkészülten várják az orosz gázellátás esetleges zavarait – írták.

A rendelet azonban egyebek mellett lehetőséget biztosított arra, hogy azok a tagországok, melyek nincsenek összekapcsolva más tagországok gázhálózataival, menetességet kérjenek a kötelező gázfelhasználás csökkentésére vonatkozó célok teljesítése alól. Azok a tagállamok, amelyek villamosenergia-hálózatai nincsenek összehangolva az európai villamosenergia-rendszerrel, és amelyek áramtermelése nagymértékben függ a gáztól, szintén mentességet élvezhetnek a villamosenergia-ellátási válság kockázatának elkerülése érdekében.

A tagállamok akkor is eltérést kérhetnek a célérték teljesítésétől, ha elérték gáztárolási kapacitásuk maximumát, ha nagymértékben függenek a gáztól mint az alapvető fontosságú iparágak alapvető energiaforrásától, vagy gázfogyasztásuk az elmúlt évben legalább 8 százalékkal nőtt az elmúlt öt év átlagához képest.

A tagállamok megállapodtak abban is, hogy intézkedéseik hatása nem érinti a védett fogyasztókat, köztük a háztartásokat és a társadalom működéséhez szükséges alapvető szolgáltatásokat, például az alapvető fontosságú szervezeteket, az egészségügyet és a védelmi hatóságokat. A lehetséges intézkedések közé egyebek között a villamosenergia-ágazatban felhasznált gáz csökkentése, az iparban használt üzemanyag felváltását ösztönző intézkedések, nemzeti figyelemfelkeltő kampányok, a fűtés és a hűtés csökkentésére irányuló célzott kötelezettségek tartozhatnak.

A rendelet kivételes és rendkívüli, korlátozott időre szól. Egy évig marad érvényben, az Európai Bizottság azonban 2023 májusáig vizsgálatot végez, hogy mérlegelje meghosszabbításának szükségességét – tették hozzá.

Ursula von der Leyen, az Európai Bizottság elnöke a rendelet tanácsi elfogadását követően kiadott nyilatkozatában hangsúlyozta: “az EU a mai napon döntő lépést tett annak érdekében, hogy felkészülten nézzen szembe a Vlagyimir Putyin orosz elnök okozta teljes gázkimaradás veszélyével”.

Szavai szerint a rekordidő alatt elért megállapodás biztosítani fogja a gázfogyasztás rendezett és összehangolt csökkentését az Európai Unióban, és szavatolja, hogy Európa megfelelően készülhessen fel a következő télre. A gázfelhasználás 15 százalékos csökkentése iránti közös elkötelezettség jelentős lépés, ugyanis segít elérni azt a célt, hogy a gáztározók elégséges töltöttségi szintet érjenek el már a tél beállta előtt – mondta.

“Az EU minden tőle telhetőt meg fog tenni az ellátás biztonságának biztosítása és a fogyasztók, köztük a háztartások és az ipari szereplők védelme érdekében” – fogalmazott. A Gazprom bejelentése, miszerint az Európai Áramlat gázvezetéken keresztül tovább csökkenti az Európába irányuló gázszállításokat, minden igazolható technikai ok nélküli, és Oroszország mint energiaszolgáltató megbízhatatlanságát mutatja – tette hozzá az uniós bizottság elnöke.

Kadri Simson energiaügyi EU-biztos a megállapodást követően tartott sajtótájékoztatóján közölte: a gázfelhasználás visszaszorításáról szóló rendeletnek elegendő gáztartalék felhalmozását kell eredményeznie ahhoz, hogy valamennyi mentesség maradéktalan kihasználása esetén is Európa átvészeljen egy “átlagos” telet akkor is, ha Oroszország már júliusban teljesen leállítja az ellátást.

A legfontosabb eredmény, hogy a tagországok megkezdik a gázmegtakarítást, és az, hogy összehangolt cselekvést biztosító kész terv áll rendelkezésre, ha a helyzet tovább romlik – mondta.

A biztos közölte, lehetetlen teljes bizonyossággal megjósolni, hogy mennyi gázra lesz szüksége Európának a következő télen és azt követően. Ez az időjárási viszonyoktól és más egyéb tényezőktől függ – mondta. Az uniós bizottság számításai szerint azonban a 15 százalékos megtakarítási célérték bevezetése mellett egy esetleges júliusi teljes ellátás-megszakadás esetén, átlagos hőmérsékletű télen 30 milliárd köbméter, hideg tél esetén pedig legfeljebb 45 milliárd köbméter gázra van szüksége Európának – tette hozzá az uniós biztos.

 

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