Energy Rationing > EU Regulation 2017/1938

On 30 March 2022, an ‘early warning’ order was placed by Austrian energy regulators, and it was done in accordance with EU Regulation 2017/1938, a joint undertaking ‘of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2017 concerning measures to safeguard the security of gas supply’, as EUR-Lex informs the reader.

You may find the current version here. As this is an EU Regulation ‘with EEA relevance’, it would be good for readers from that other alphabet soup (i.e., Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) to pay attention, too.

From the text of the regulation (as always, with my emphases):

Art. 1: This Regulation establishes provisions aiming to safeguard the security of gas supply in the Union by ensuring the proper and continuous functioning of the internal market in natural gas (‘gas’), by allowing for exceptional measures to be implemented when the market can no longer deliver the gas supplies required, including solidarity measure of a last resort, and by providing for the clear definition and attribution of responsibilities among natural gas undertakings, the Member States and the Union regarding both preventive action and the reaction to concrete disruptions of gas supply. This Regulation also establishes transparent mechanisms concerning, in a spirit of solidarity, the coordination of planning for, and response to, emergencies at national, regional and Union level.

Translation: much like the German government’s 2016 white paper noting eerily reminiscent ‘contingencies’ with respect to ‘emergencies’ and ‘market failure’, said EU Regulation empowers ‘the Union’ to plan, prepare, and, if deemed necessary, act upon ‘emergencies at national, regional, and Union level’. In other words: EU Regulation—which is to say: secondary legislation empowering the executive unaccountable to any regional/ state or even national parliament—overrides member states’ sovereignty (again).

Art. 2 provides definitions and Art. 3 provides the ‘meat’:

The security of gas supply shall be the shared responsibility of … Member States, in particular through their competent authorities, and the Commission.

Art. 9 (3): The preventive action plan shall be based primarily on market-based measures and shall not put an undue burden on natural gas undertakings, or negatively impact on the functioning of the internal market in gas.

Translation: no changes to our policies, but if push comes to shove, ‘no undue burden on natural gas undertakings’ means: bail-outs by either the EU and/or national governments. One found a work-around here with the nationalisation of, e.g., Gazprom Germany, which is now a state-owned enterprise by the name of Uniper. So, creative accounting to the rescue (bailout).

Art. 9 (7) c further explains that any ‘potential impact’ must take into account ‘the security of gas supply of neighbouring Member States, in particular for those measures that could reduce the liquidity in regional markets or restrict flows to neighbouring Member States’.

Translation: there is the need for an non-member-state arbiter to ensure ‘transparency’ and ‘fairness’ in any kind of emergency response, or: another stab in the back of national sovereignty.

The most inane absurdities, however, are contained in Art. 11, which establishes ‘three crisis levels’: early warning (we’re at that right now), alert level, and emergency level.

As regards the early warning level, here’s how the EU ‘thinks’ (sic) about this:

Art. 11 (1) a: where there is concrete, serious and reliable information that an event which is likely to result in significant deterioration of the gas supply situation may occur and is likely to lead to the alert or the emergency level being triggered

We’re coming, again, full circle: EU leadership, in its apparent infinite wisdom, has declared an embargo on Russian hydrocarbons, hence it allows the same EU leaders to determine that there’s a ‘likely … significant deterioration of the gas supply’.

This isn’t rocket science, EU Commission—it’s like you’re shooting yourself in the foot and claim that ‘Putin did this’ (Mr. Putin once also added ‘perhaps a bit higher than the foot’, to be precise).

Also, now that we’re at the early warning threat level, it is therefore (sic) ‘likely to lead to the alert or the emergency level’, which means, among other things, as per Art. 10

(1) g the designation of ‘a crisis manager’

(1) i identification of ‘the contribution of non-market-based measures planned or to be implemented for the emergency level, and assess the degree to which the use of such non-market-based measures is necessary to cope with a crisis’

There’s, of course, much more to this, but the bottom line is this: (still from Art. 10 (1)

In order to prevent undue gas consumption during an emergency, as referred to in point (l) of the first subparagraph, or during the application of the measures referred to in Article 11(3) and Article 13, the competent authority of the Member State concerned shall inform customers who are not protected customers that they are required to cease or reduce their gas consumption without creating technically unsafe situations.

It’s the ‘backdoor’ to the entirely unaccountable-to-the-sovereign people imposition of rationing.

Oh, by the way, lest you’re wondering who has the ‘competence’ to declare such an emergency, here’s Art. 12 (1):

The Commission may declare a regional or Union emergency at the request of a competent authority that has declared an emergency …

The Commission shall declare, as appropriate, a regional or Union emergency at the request of at least two competent authorities that have declared an emergency

So, there you have it: the EU Commission ‘may declare’ something, if one member-state declares an emergency.

Yet, the Commission ‘shall declare’—i.e., will do it—if two or more member-states declare an emergency.

The below lines are from the ‘EU Bans Russian Gas…’ piece written on 31 Jan. 2026, and I honestly see no reason to change my views:

At the very least, we’re looking at a severe economic shock whose effects will ripple throughout the EU-UK economy in 2026/27.

Most gov’ts are deeply unpopular already, and public sentiment isn’t too kind to politicos™, experts™, and journos™ pretending that everything is due to evil Russia! Russia! Russia!, to say nothing about the EU’s leadership caste.

Will we see the storming of the Tuileries or Winter Palace—I mean the EU Commission’s HQ in Brussels—by angry mobs of enraged citizens?

I dunno, but I’m certain that 2026 is, in the Chinese proverbial way, going to be a very, very interesting year, least of all for the EUroklatura.

In other words: good luck, Brussels (and Frankfurt, the seat of the ECB), to try to fix this.

Ceterum censeo Confoederationem Europaeam delenda est.