It is still too early to evaluate the impact of the war in Ukraine on the European Union's economy, but the forecast for 4% growth in Europe and 4.2% in Romania must certainly be revised downward, European Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on March 29 while attending a conference organised in Bucharest by The Economist.

"How much [should they be revised]? It depends on how the war will develop, and it also depends on our common response policies," the European Commissioner stated, according to Economica.net.

The day before the conference, after meeting with the Romanian minister of finance Adrian Caciu, Commissioner Gentiloni expressed more optimistic views.

As regards the response policies supposed to mitigate the effects of the war in Ukraine, Commissioner Gentiloni mentioned European Union's [overly optimistic] commitment to reduce by two thirds the import of Russian natural gas by the end of the year.

Russia accounted for more than 40% of the EU's gas imports in 2020, making it the bloc's biggest supplier, according to an EnergyMonitor.ai analysis published on February 28, immediately after the war began in Ukraine. Europe has more than 32GW of gas-fired power plants in the pipeline, while it relied on imports for 83.6% of its gas in 2020, just below 89.6% in 2019, the analysis read. 

andrei@romania-insider.com

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