Austria’s Gewessler launches task force to investigate Gazprom energy contract

4 months ago 23

The Austrian energy minister launched a task force of independent experts to examine the country’s long-term gas contract with Russia’s Gazprom, on Tuesday (9 July), including investigating the level of political involvement in the 2018 signing.

Until May Austria received 90% of its gas via a pipeline from Russia, while overall demand has decreased. Volumes imported from the Russian-owned Gazprom have almost returned to pre-Ukraine war levels, because of a long-term supply contract which extends to 2040.

Meanwhile, domestic elections loom, Gazprom’s deal to transit gas through Ukraine is expiring in January 2025, and Russia in its third year of war.

“Betting everything on Russia has failed in terms of security and energy policy,” explained Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) at a press conference to announce the launch of a “gas independence commission.”

The expert task force has two objectives: “examining” the 2040 supply contract with Gazprom, to find a possible way to withdraw, and “the political conditions” under which the agreement was signed in 2018, by the right-wing government of the ÖVP (EPP).

In an agreement between the Austrian government and the energy supplier OMV, who signed the deal with Gazprom, members of the commission will be allowed to access the highly secretive contract.

The EU’s gas supply rules will be the legal basis for access, the ministry said in a statement.

The 2018 deal was signed in the Austrian Chancellery, in the presence of then-Chanceller Sebastian Kurz – a move which Gewessler described today as a “political mistake.”

The secret contract is said to be for 6 billion cubic metres of natural gas per annum – Austrians must still to pay for the gas, even if they choose not to accept it.

With parliamentary elections expected in late September, the investigative task force is politically sensitive.

However Gewessler stressed it was time to engage with the “political issues” of the country’s dependence on Russia, adding that the group would work on this investigation until the end of the year.

This was backed by Irmard Griss a former president of the Austrian Supreme Court, and co-chair of the task force, who stressed the investigation was “not an election stunt,” in a press conference.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Rajnish Singh]