BRUSSELS — U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has called on the EU’s remaining buyers of Russian fossil fuels to drop their campaign against the bloc’s efforts to end dependency on Moscow and buy from America instead.
Speaking on Friday at an event in Brussels, where he has held meetings this week with officials on how to increase imports of American liquefied natural gas and cut off the flow of funds for Russia’s war on Ukraine, Wright said it would be preferable for Europe to get its supplies from “its friends.”
Asked by POLITICO whether countries like Hungary and Slovakia, which have opposed the European Commission’s efforts to phase out Russian gas, should finally end their dealings with the Kremlin, Wright said “absolutely.”
“We want to displace all Russian gas. President Trump, America, and all the nations of the EU, we want to end the Russian-Ukraine war,” said Wright. “The more we can strangle Russia’s ability to fund this murderous war, the better for all of us. So the answer to your question is absolutely.”
At the same time, Wright called for European countries to find alternatives to Russian atomic power, saying “we want to see nuclear technology coming from the United States or within the EU itself.”
On Thursday, the EU’s top court ruled that the Commission was wrong to have allowed Hungary to give state aid to fund a major expansion of its nuclear power facilities with `Russian support. The Court of Justice said that officials should have determined whether construction of the Paks II plant, in partnership with Russian state firm Rosatom, breached procurement rules.
Hungary’s populist prime minister and Trump ally, Viktor Orbán, has long campaigned in favor of the Paks II project — and against EU sanctions on Russia, including a plan from Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen to phase out all imports of gas from the country by 2027.
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