14. June 2022 | Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, Global Public Policy

How to Design EU-Level Contingency Plans for Gas Shortages?

In the latest edition of DIW’s policy brief series “Politikberatung kompakt 177”, Karsten Neuhoff, Isabella Weber, Kacper Szulecki, and Andreas Goldthau introduced several policy recommendations for the EU gas market, in light of the looming gas shortages due to the tensions with Russia.

In the piece, Goldthau et al. analyze that the EU is not fully prepared for a long-term gas shortage and high gas prices may not create the necessary level of savings, as well as unfair distributions. Therefore, the policy experts argue that the EU must foster a saving target and immediately needs to introduce savings and contribution strategies for each respective EU member state. In order to facilitate a fair process of a potential rationing plan, the authors recommend initiating an EU task force that solely focuses on a gas shortage scenario. The entire brief can be found here.