Commission President Ursula von der Leyen describes the interruption in gas supplies on Wednesday as "another provocation by the Kremlin".

However, the EU is not unprepared.

Poland and Bulgaria would now be supplied with gas by neighboring countries.

Henrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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It is now paying off that the EU has invested in the connections in recent years, she said.

Further care is now being coordinated at the regional level.

The EU Commission will also press ahead with work on replacing Russian gas with natural gas and liquid gas from other providers and will shortly present proposals on how dependence on Russia can be further reduced through the faster expansion of renewable energy sources and investments in energy efficiency.

Next sanctions package is being prepared

"The era of fossil fuels is coming to an end and forever," said von der Leyen.

The French Presidency has announced that it will convene a special meeting of European energy ministers as soon as possible.

"The Kremlin has failed again in its attempt to split the EU," emphasized von der Leyen.

However, she did not announce specific new sanctions against Russia.

In the morning, the Polish ambassador to the EU called for the sixth package of sanctions to be put into effect immediately and also for an embargo on gas and oil from Russia to be imposed.

Von der Leyen emphasized that the package of sanctions would be published at the appropriate time.

The Commission is also looking at oil imports, as it has done with gas.

Von der Leyen made it clear that paying for Russian gas in rubles is a clear violation of EU sanctions - at least if the contracts stipulate payment in dollars or euros.

But that is clearly provided for in 97 percent of the contracts.

Previously, the financial service Bloomberg reported that ten European companies were willing to pay their bills in rubles.

Four companies have already done so.

If companies send euros or dollars to Gazprom Bank and the bank converts them into rubles and deposits them into a ruble account to pay the gas bill from there, the Commission and the Council do not believe that this is a violation of the sanctions .