OREANDA-NEWS. The leadership of the European Commission and the International Energy Agency (IEA) does not plan to ease the pressure on the Russian energy company Gazprom and is preparing a coordinated attack to force it to change its behavior in the market. About it writes the American edition of Politico.

As the authors of the article note, extremely tense relations remain between Gazprom and official Brussels. Despite the fact that the Russian company insists that it fully fulfills its contractual obligations, the European Commission and the IEA credit it with "creating" an artificial fuel shortage in Europe. In addition, Brussels continues to insist that Moscow is allegedly artificially inflating demand for gas.

For this reason, according to Politico, the European authorities are preparing a blow to Gazprom in several directions at once: on the one hand, to formally charge the Russian gas giant with monopoly and manipulation of gas prices, and on the other hand, to block the launch of Nord Stream — 2".

Earlier, Tim Koehler, director of the German gas industry association Zukunft Gas, said that the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would take place during 2022, after which prices on the European gas market would stabilize. In his opinion, "Gazprom" will not be interested in setting too high a price for fuel, as this may lead to a reduction in gas consumption.