On Tuesday, all the leaders of the parties were invited by TV2 to talk about the future of the EU and NATO, and Denmark’s use of Russian gas became a big talk.
The ongoing war has shown how much Europe is dependent on gas coming from Russia. That is why the leaders Pernille Vermund (Nye Borgerlige) and Alex Vanopslagh (Liberal Alliance) believe that we must build nuclear power plants in Denmark.
“Across Europe, attitudes towards nuclear power have been directed at closing down the power plants. Now we are considering whether to keep them open. But that means we have found ourselves in a situation where we have become more and more dependent on the Russians. , ”Said Vermund.
Need other solutions
Germany became more dependent on Russia when it shut down three of its last surviving nuclear power plants last year. This decision was spurred by the Fukushima accident in 2011.
No one in the debate wants Denmark to be dependent on Putin’s energy anymore.
“We should do everything we can,” said Liberal Party leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen. “Whether we need to lay extra pipes in the North Sea or turn up the biogas – we need to do everything we can to remedy this.”
His Radical colleague Sofie Carsten Nielsen agrees, but not by building new power plants: “I kind of agree with Pernille Vermund that it was probably not the best idea for Germany to close the power plants. But building them in Denmark is not a solution.
A country free of Russian gas
On Tuesday, the European Commission presented a plan to reduce demand for Russian gas by 80 percent within a year.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this would be achieved in three different ways.
The first is to find other suppliers such as USA, Qatar or Australia. The second is to increase green energy. This will require massive investments in renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydrogen. And finally, it would require more efficient use of energy.
As Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Sunday, the government will go further. Denmark must become completely free of Russian gas. If it does so, it will, among other things, investigate whether it is possible to increase the extraction of gas in the Tyra field, which is Denmark’s largest natural gas field in the North Sea.