EU Urgently Allocates €30 Million to Moldova for Gas Procurement Amid Energy Crisis

The European Union has provided Moldova with €30 million for the purchase and transportation of gas to meet the country's needs during the winter period. This was announced today by EU High Representative Kaja Kallas in Brussels during a press conference following the EU Foreign Affairs Council.

‘In the midst of winter, the Kremlin also uses energy to blackmail Moldova. So today, in response, the European Union has decided to provide 30 million euros to help Moldova purchase and transport gas. At the peak of winter, the Kremlin also uses various other tools to exert pressure. We will need to restore electricity and heating to more than a hundred thousand people in Moldova,’ Kallas said.

According to her, the European Union always supports friends and allies in difficult times.

On 28 December last year, Russia's Gazprom announced that it was cutting off gas supplies to Moldova because of alleged ‘debts’ owed by Moldovagaz. In this regard, the ‘authorities’ of the self-proclaimed Transnistria declared a state of emergency. After the gas supply was cut off on 1 January, central heating and hot water were cut off in the cities.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu accused the Kremlin of provoking the energy crisis in the Transnistrian region and stressed that Chisinau was not preventing Russian gas supplies to the separatist enclave.

On 1 January, the Moldovan state-run thermal power plant switched to coal-fired electricity generation. 

In turn, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is ready to send specialists to Moldovan SDPP to set up its operation on a different type of coal and to increase electricity generation from 220 megawatts to 2 gigawatts.