Poland to become independent of Russian oil, gas by new year: PM

Poland will take measures to become independent of Russian oil and gas by the end of 2022 in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

While the country is already broadly independent of Russian supply, Poland now intends to put forward the most radical plan of any
European country to wean itself off Russian imports entirely, Morawiecki said on Wednesday.

He added that independence from Russian oil and gas would partly be achieved by focusing on renewable energies.

“Thanks to these energy sources we will make ourselves independent from Russian oil and Russian gas, but also from other countries that
pose no threat to us,” he said, as currently the only way to replace “very expensive Russian gas” was with “very expensive Norwegian gas”.

In the long run, Morawiecki said, he did not want to buy gas from the “rich Norwegians” any more.

EU embargo

Poland’s national-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) has been demanding an EU embargo on Russian oil, gas and coal since
the start of Russia’s invasion.

On Tuesday, the government in Warsaw had already announced that they would stop importing coal from Russia.

“We called on the EU Commission to act decisively in the first days of this war. Unfortunately, the EU Commission did not reach a
decision, so now we will decide for ourselves,” Morawiecki had said on Tuesday.

He said he hopes coal imports from Russia can cease in April but, at the latest, they would stop in May. Instead, Poland will look to
Australia, South Africa, and Colombia for its coal imports.

Currently, the country produces nearly 80 percent of its energy from hard coal and brown coal. Climate minister Anna Moskwa said plans to phase out coal by 2049 remained unchanged.