Slovakia - as one of the remaining key buyers of Russian gas in the EU - has announced exceptionally intensive international talks on the proposal of a swap of Russian gas with natural gas from Azerbaijan for next week in order to be able to obtain natural gas via the Ukrainian transit route beyond 2024. This decision by the Slovakian government could lead to a number of pitfalls, as Ukraine has repeatedly stated in political statements that it will stop the transit of Russian natural gas from 1 January 2025 and will only purchase natural gas from the West due to the sustained political pressure on Slovakia.

PM Fico has stated that the government sees no reason to pay more than necessary for natural gas for geopolitical reasons. Therefore, according to PM Fico, there will be focussed negotiations at various levels in different countries from the beginning of next week - also during the Christmas holidays. Slovakia, with an annual consumption of approx. 5 bcm, could purchase approx. 1.5 bcm per year via Turkstream (via Hungary) - this would leave it short of approx. 3.5 bcm of annual consumption from the beginning of 2025. Only time will tell whether Slovakia can successfully conclude the negotiations from its point of view. It will only be possible to analyse which swap volumes are being discussed and what impact this could have on Austria once the negotiations have been concluded.