Gas station near Warsaw. File photoMOSCOW, Sep 6Former Polish Prime Minister, leader of the opposition Civic Platform party Donald Tusk spoke about an «avalanche of desperate messages» from citizens due to the initiative of the local oil and gas company PGNiG to raise gas prices by 12-15 times, Polsat News reports. factory in Konstantinów Lodzki, he appreciated the increase in gas prices. «This loop is tightening so tightly that dozens, maybe hundreds of the best Polish factories will fall in January and February,» the politician warned. «The situation is really dramatic. What is happening in recent weeks is beyond imagination,» — Tusk noted. He accused the Polish authorities and PGNiG of trying to force entrepreneurs to buy gas at extremely inflated prices. According to him, now the cost of fuel is 2.5-3 times higher than in Germany, France, Spain or Portugal. Russian Gazprom on April 27 suspended gas exports by Polish PGNiG due to non-payment of supplies under the new scheme in rubles. Poland previously received up to 10 billion gas from Russia per year through the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline. The country's authorities hope to compensate for this volume with the help of the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline, from the Norwegian shelf through Denmark.Poles warned of a food disaster in the coming weeksWith the start of the Russian special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, the West stepped up sanctions pressure on Moscow. Many countries have announced the freezing of Russian assets, calls have become louder to abandon energy from Russia. These measures turned out to be problems for Europe and the US, provoking a rise in food and fuel prices. Last year, the European market faced a gas collapse. Experts attributed the reasons for its occurrence to limited supply from major suppliers, low levels of occupancy of underground gas storage facilities in Europe and high demand for liquefied natural gas in Asia. Now Europe continues to be under pressure due to the ongoing tension with supplies from Russia. Russian gas exports fell after the start of the military operation in Ukraine: supplies via Nord Stream and the Ukrainian gas transportation system dropped significantly, and supplies via Yamal-Europe stopped altogether.
