EBM Newsdesk Analysis
On 10 May 2026, Speaking in Bratislava, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico accused the EU of pursuing an energy policy that makes little economic sense. His argument was simple: if Europe stops buying Russian gas directly, it will not end up free of Russian energy — it will simply buy the same gas through American intermediaries at a higher price. As he put it, Russia would sell at normal prices, the United States would add its margin, and Europe would pay the premium. His blunt question captured the frustration: “Are we such idiots already?”
What gives Fico’s criticism weight is the data behind it. While Brussels pressures smaller, more dependent states such as Slovakia to accelerate the phase-out of Russian energy, some of the EU’s largest economies continue increasing their own purchases of Russian gas. The figures are publicly available, published quarterly, and they reveal a contradiction that sits uneasily alongside the bloc’s claims of pursuing true energy independence.
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SubscribeThe bigger issue is not Fico’s politics, which have long been openly sympathetic to Moscow. It is that his criticism lands because it exposes a clear inconsistency at the heart of Europe’s energy strategy. The EU has created a system that asks its most exposed members to bear the highest costs, while its strongest economies quietly continue doing business as usual. That contradiction is becoming increasingly difficult for Brussels to defend.
What the Data Actually Shows
The numbers come from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, whose European LNG tracker maps the trade cargo by cargo. Five European countries imported Russian LNG in the first quarter of 2026: France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal.
France leads. It imported more Russian LNG than any other European country in Q1 2026, with 35% of its total LNG imports arriving from Russia, and its monthly intake hit a record high in January 2026. Spain is close behind, where Russian LNG imports rose 43% year on year and reached a record monthly high in March 2026. Belgium is the standout: it is the only European country where Russia is the top LNG supplier, and its Zeebrugge terminal imported more Russian LNG than any other in Europe.
The bloc-wide trend is unambiguous, and it cuts directly against the official line about weaning the continent off Russian molecules through a smarter, more efficient energy strategy. EU imports of Russian LNG jumped 16% year on year in the first quarter, with France, Spain and Belgium accounting for most deliveries, and the bloc spent €6.7 billion on Russian LNG in 2025 alone. Russia remains the EU’s second-largest LNG supplier even as the stated policy is to eliminate it.
The Germany Question
Germany’s role is more uncomfortable than the import tables suggest. Berlin has banned its own ports from receiving Russian LNG, yet the gas still reaches German buyers. Belgium, Spain and France receive Russian cargoes and re-export them onward, which makes the origin difficult to trace and allows Germany to import Russian LNG despite its port ban.
The mechanism runs through legacy contracts. Germany’s SEFE — nationalised from Gazprom ownership in 2022 — holds a supply contract with Russia’s Yamal LNG, part of a web of European deals running as far out as 2038 and 2041. These are precisely the contracts the EU’s 2027 phase-out would have to break, exposing companies to potential legal action — the kind of structural fragility that turned Europe’s energy crisis into a full-blown diplomatic problem earlier this year.
Why the Hypocrisy Charge Sticks
Fico has every political reason to make this argument, and that should not blunt it. The EU Commission wants to ban all Russian gas by the end of 2027, and Slovakia — landlocked, contractually tied to Russian supply until 2034, and reliant on the trade — stands to absorb a disproportionate share of the pain. Fico has threatened to veto the plan and called it economically untenable.
The strategic discomfort is that the phase-out may not even reduce Europe’s dependency so much as relocate it. European imports of US LNG more than tripled from 29.8 billion cubic metres in 2021 to 99.5 billion in 2025, with the US already supplying 58% of Europe’s LNG and on track toward two-thirds in 2026. Swapping a Russian dependency for an American one, at American prices, is defensible on security grounds — but it is a choice with a cost, and that cost is what Fico is weaponising, especially with European gas markets still raw from the price shock that nearly broke the continent’s economy this spring. IEEFA
The European Angle
For Europe’s industrial base, this is the real exposure. The continent’s manufacturers already pay some of the highest energy prices in the developed world, and a forced pivot to premium US LNG hardwires that disadvantage in for a decade. Germany’s chemicals sector, Spain’s industry and the broader European productivity gap all sit downstream of the gas price.
Brussels has framed the phase-out as a moral and security imperative, and on those terms it has a case. But energy policy made on moral terms still arrives as a line item on a factory’s balance sheet. The longer the bloc’s largest economies keep buying record Russian volumes while lecturing smaller members, the harder it becomes to hold the political coalition together — and the more credible figures like Fico look to the voters paying the bill.
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