Divided EU means Putin keeps raking in gas cash

EUROCRATS last night scrapped plans to choke off funds for Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine when they ditched a proposed price cap on Russian gas.

European Commission officials had briefed last week that EU governments would back a blueprint aimed at preventing Moscow from weaponising energy supplies. But the bloc remains divided on the idea, which is backed by France and Poland, but opposed in countries such as Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Slovakia.

It forced Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to axe the price cap in favour of a windfall tax on the profits of energy giants benefiting from higher prices that she said would raise £120billion. ‘It is wrong to receive extraordinary record profits benefiting from war and on the back of consumers,’ she said.

Mrs von der Leyen also said that the EU executive would prepare new proposals for wartime-style rationing of electricity. Brussels says the money raised by the windfall tax will help households and businesses across the continent struggling with inflation and surging bills.

But it raises the prospect that some EU governments will continue to funnel money into the Kremlin’s coffers. The bloc has paid £78billion for Russian fossil fuels since the start of the war, say experts.

However, Russia now supplies less than 10 per cent of the EU’s gas imports. Before the invasion, the figure was 40 per cent.