The EU's Russian Gas Ban Is Now Law. The Cost Falls on a Few Landlocked Buyers and on Storage Policy

Regulation (EU) 2026/261, which phases out imports of Russian natural gas into the European Union, entered into force on 3 February 2026 after formal adoption in late January. It is the legal end point of the REPowerEU strategy launched after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The co-legislators reached a provisional deal in early December 2025, and the European Parliament approved it on 17 December by 500 votes to 120, with 32 abstentions. The timetable is staggered.

Spot purchases of Russian LNG are banned shortly after entry into force. Short-term LNG contracts concluded before 2025 may run until 25 April 2026, and long-term LNG contracts until 1 January 2027. For pipeline gas, short-term contracts may run until 17 June 2026 and long-term contracts until 30 September 2027, or until 1 November 2027 if storage filling targets are not met. Our view is that the regulation is the right decision and that the EU can absorb it.

Russian gas has already fallen to a small fraction of what it was before 2022, and global LNG supply is entering a period of strong growth. Before the invasion, Russia supplied around 40 per cent of the EU's imported gas, mostly by pipeline. Pipeline flows through Nord Stream ended in 2022, and the transit contract through Ukraine expired at the end of 2024. Ending them removes a residual dependence that Moscow could still use as leverage, and ends a stream of revenue to the Russian state.

The regulation explicitly links the pipeline deadline to storage, allowing the long-term contract end date to move from 30 September to 1 November 2027 if storage targets are not met. Removing Russian volumes means that storage must be filled from other sources. There is also a commercial question for the European companies holding long-term contracts with Russian suppliers. The Russian gas ban completes a policy that Europe began in 2022 under far more difficult conditions.

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