Czechia offers Slovakia help over cutoff from Russian gas supplies

Luxembourg, 20 October (CTK correspondent) - The Czech Republic is ready to help Slovakia if it runs into problems because of being cut off from Russian gas supplies. Industry and Trade Minister Lukáš Vlček told journalists in Luxembourg today. EU energy ministers today backed a proposal to phase out gas imports from Russia to the European Union, with a complete ban set to take effect from 1 January 2028. According to CTK, only Hungary and Slovakia opposed the compromise; both countries have long had reservations about the proposal.

"I have offered my Slovak counterpart several times — most recently when we met 14 days ago in Bratislava at the European Nuclear Energy Forum — that if Slovakia needs closer cooperation with the Czech Republic, the Czech Republic is ready to provide it," Vlček said before today's meeting began.

The minister also acknowledged that Bratislava and Budapest's concerns about the impact of ending Russian gas imports on supplies or energy prices were relevant. "But I ask myself why these member states did not respond in previous years as the Czech Republic did. We responded, modernised the TAL oil pipeline, secured gas storage capacity, and so on," Vlček added.

Oil currently flows into the Czech Republic only via the western route, through the Italian TAL pipeline and the connecting IKL pipeline. Until the beginning of this spring, oil also flowed into Czechia from the Russian Druzhba pipeline, but supplies through it were halted in early March. Druzhba has not been used since.

The latest, still-unapproved 19th package of anti-Russian sanctions envisages an even earlier complete ban on imports of Russian LNG, from 1 January 2027. The Czech Republic supports the proposal, according to Vlček.

"Russia is waging war against us, and it makes no sense for us to keep financing Russia's war against Europe," the minister said.

"The Czech Republic is not currently importing gas from Russia," he added, while noting that he could not rule out that it "is probably getting here somehow, through certain channels, via intermediaries."