Recital (7)

The recent crisis provided evidence that trustful trade relations with partners supplying energy products are crucial to preserving market stability and protecting human life and health as well as the essential security interests of the Union, in particular because the Union depends to a large extent on energy imports from third countries. Maintaining energy supplies from the Russian Federation would expose the Union to continued economic and security risks; it would therefore decrease, rather than increase, its security of energy supply. Even dependencies on smaller import volumes of Russian gas can, if abused by the Russian Federation, significantly distort the price dynamic, even if only temporarily, and disrupt energy markets, in particular in those regions which are still significantly reliant on imports from the Russian Federation. In view of the long standing and consistent pattern of market manipulations and supply disruptions, as well as the fact that the government of the Russian Federation has consistently used gas trade as a weapon to achieve policy goals rather than trade goals, it is appropriate to take legally binding measures to eliminate all remaining vulnerabilities of the Union resulting from dependence on natural gas imports from the Russian Federation, both via pipelines (pipeline gas) and liquified natural gas (LNG).