The Polish Competition and Consumer Protection Court overturned the decision of the Polish Antimonopoly Office (UOKiK) to impose a fine of 6.2 billion euros on Russia’s Gazprom.
The decision of the Polish court on November 21 surprised the UOKiK, which plans to appeal against it, writes the AFP news agency.
The threats that we talked about when presenting the solution are clearly visible today not only in Poland, but throughout Europe,” said UOKiK President Tomasz Khrestny.
The Polish antimonopoly authority fined the Russian gas monopoly in October 2020.
Then UOKiK announced that the loan agreements concluded between the companies Nord Stream 2 AG, OAO Gazprom and Western financial investors for the purpose of financing the Nord Stream 2 project, under Polish antimonopoly law, were a concentration.
Poland belongs to those EU member states that opposed the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, considering it a political project. The German government has previously noted that the construction of this gas pipeline has nothing to do with politics and has only economic goals. Russia had a similar position on this issue.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was decided to abandon the launch of Nord Stream 2. At the end of September, as a result of sabotage, explosions occurred on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. The German government believes that damage to the threads of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline makes it impossible to operate it.
Earlier, the Arbitration Court in Stockholm ordered the Finnish gas operator Gasum to pay Gazprom 300 million euros with interest. The Swedish arbitration recognized as lawful the decree of the President of the aggressor country Vladimir Putin on the transfer of payments for gas into rubles. The Polish edition of Energia.rp.pl specified at the same time that now Gazprom will sue its other clients in the EU, who also refused to pay in rubles.
Meanwhile, Germany has decided to nationalize Gazprom’s subsidiary holding, completing the processes that have been going on since the spring of 2022. Nationalize the assets of the Russian company in Poland.
The decision to nationalize the former “daughter” of the Russian energy giant, formerly called Gazprom Germania, was made by the German government after the European Commission agreed to provide the country with assistance in the amount of 225.6 million euros to acquire a 100% stake in SEFE.
The transfer of SEFE into state ownership will help Germany ensure the security of gas supplies and thus reduce the country’s dependence on Russian energy resources against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.
Source: Racurs
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