Continued fossil fuel consumption and a total cutoff each present their own terrible risks, but Europe’s green delusion is still subject to geopolitical reality.

Last month, on June 17, the European Commission made an important announcement that largely went unnoticed amid the chaos of the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran. EU decision-makers in Brussels put forward a plan to stop all Russian oil and gas imports by the end of 2027. This highly contentious issue has long been a cause for concern across the bloc and will almost certainly become yet another wedge that will further deepen the divide between its Western and Eastern member states.

Although framed as a bold step toward the green transition and strategic autonomy, the deadline is, in practice, an arbitrary benchmark that will hurt EU economies, raise costs for consumers, and jeopardize its energy supply, all without doing much major damage to Russia’s war machine. Its primary value is symbolic: severing ties with Moscow. It is completely impractical by any other measure.

The core problem is that the EU has not found a viable substitute for Russian fossil fuels, which remain cheaper and more accessible than most alternatives. Sticking to this deadline will actually reduce Europe’s energy security, because it doesn’t improve the bloc’s energy mix. Also, greater energy security relies on diversification. Europe’s dependence on Russia became problematic in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine because, instead of diversifying its fossil fuel imports earlier, the EU had placed its bets on the future green transition.

A more prudent approach would have simultaneously aimed to reduce reliance on Russian energy through diversification and a more long-term plan for green development, albeit at the expense of short-term climate targets.

Because it failed to do this earlier, the bloc now finds itself scrambling to diversify, without the security buffer it might have had if this was done earlier. Russian imports will be replaced with Middle Eastern fuels, increasing its dependency on states like Saudi Arabia, which can hardly be described as much more reliable partners than Moscow. This is a risky move, as Joe Biden learned during his ill-fated presidency after his administration released an intelligence report in 2021 implicating Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudis retaliated by cutting oil production, which contributed to higher prices for American consumers. For Brussels, increased reliance on Riyadh would mean holding back any........

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