With Russian Cutoff Feared, Europeans Are Told to Curb Natural Gas Use
The main argument to get all E.U nations on board, despite their different levels of vulnerability, is that the bloc’s economies are so interconnected that a blow to one is a blow to all.

“The choice we have today is triggering solidarity now or waiting for an emergency that will force solidarity upon us,” said Frans Timmermans, a senior Dutch politician who is the commission’s energy and climate czar.

He said savings in gas around the E.U. would create spare capacity to direct to the countries most in need in the wintertime, ensuring that no member state goes into economic shock because of the lack of power.

Ms. von der Leyen, putting a political spin on a seemingly economic issue, said this approach would deliver a blow to Mr. Putin, who wants to sow discord within the European Union, undermining the bloc and its most powerful countries economically and politically. Determined to make that backfire on him, European leaders have drawn closer together since the war began and have taken the first step toward possibly making Ukraine an E.U. member — something Mr. Putin set out to prevent.

“Putin is trying to push us around this winter and he will dramatically fail if we stick together,” Ms. von der Leyen said.

With Russia having slashed or completely cut gas supply to a dozen E.U. countries already, and the looming threat that it will not fully reconnect an important pipeline on Thursday that has been offline for maintenance, the bloc’s alternatives are few. Mr. Putin suggested late Tuesday that natural gas would resume flowing to Europe through the pipeline, but warned that supplies may be severely curtailed.