Recital (3)

In January 2006, the Russian Federation stopped its natural gas supplies to some countries in South East and Central Europe in the middle of a cold spell, driving up prices and causing or threatening harm to citizens. On 6 January 2009, the Russian Federation again fully cut off gas in transit through Ukraine, affecting 18 Member States, in particular those in Central and Eastern Europe. This supply disruption led to serious disturbances to gas markets in the region and in the whole of the Union. Some Member States had zero natural gas flows for nearly 14 days, forcing sustained shutdowns of heating in schools and factories, which required them to declare a state of emergency. In 2014, the Russian Federation invaded and illegally annexed Crimea, seized Ukrainian gas production assets in Crimea and reduced gas supplies to several Member States which had announced that they would supply Ukraine with gas, which in turn led to market disturbances and price increases and harmed economic security. The Russian Federation’s State-controlled monopoly exporter Gazprom was the subject of several Commission investigations for a possible breach of Union competition rules and has subsequently changed its conduct on the market in order to address the Commission’s competition concerns. In several cases, the competition issues at stake concerned so-called territorial restrictions in Gazprom’s gas supply contracts, prohibiting the resale of gas outside the destination country, as well as evidence that Gazprom was engaged in unfair pricing practices and made energy supplies dependent on political concessions, such as the participation in Russian pipeline projects or acquiring control over Union energy assets.