Recital (17)

While it appears justified to exempt existing legacy supply contracts from the immediate application of the prohibition on imports of Russian gas, not all contracts concluded before the entry into force of this Regulation should benefit from such a temporary exemption. Indeed, a temporary exemption for all existing supply contracts from the prohibition might have created an incentive for Russian suppliers to use the time between the publication of the Commission proposal for this Regulation and the entry into force of the prohibition to increase current supplies by concluding new contracts or increasing volumes by changing existing supply contracts or using flexibilities under such contracts. In order to ensure that imports from the Russian Federation decrease, rather than increase, as a result of the prohibition, this Regulation should not reward companies for having concluded new Russian gas import contracts in the time between the publication of the Commission proposal for this Regulation and the entry into force of the prohibition by also granting them a transition period. Indeed, the commitment from Heads of State or Government to phase out Russian gas supplies was already made in March 2022 and the Commission built on this commitment by proposing the REPowerEU Strategy, the REPowerEU Plan and the REPowerEU Roadmap. At the latest from the publication of the proposal for this Regulation, it was no longer appropriate to consider contracts concluded after that date as legacy contracts. Contracts concluded after 17 June 2025 should therefore not benefit from the exceptional transition provisions for existing short-term and long-term supply contracts.