Macron Argued With Trump Over EU Dependence On Russian Oil And Gas

• 22.09.2025, 12:50

The French president said Trump's call is a secondary concern.

The volume of energy imports from Russia to the EU countries is "very insignificant" and these supplies are a "secondary problem". This was stated by French President Emmanuel Macron in an interview with CBS.

He commented on his US counterpart Donald Trump's call for European countries to "reduce their dependence on oil and gas from Russia."

"This is not a key factor today, as we have previously reduced our consumption of Russian oil and gas by 80%," the French president said.

Macron emphasized that the European Commission has already done a lot of work to "correct" the situation. France, he said, suffered less, as it was heavily dependent on Russian energy resources.

The main buyers of Russian oil in the EU are Hungary and Slovakia. Gas from Russia continues to be imported by Belgium, Hungary, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and France. The latter, as the EU's largest gas buyer, plans to replace Russian fuel supplies with Qatari products.

The EU as a whole cut its purchases of Russian oil by a third in July compared to the previous month.