Although Slovakia’s Russian-friendly leaders have often complained that they have nowhere else to turn for gas supplies, a natural gas pipeline linking Poland and Slovakia has hardly been used since opening to much fanfare three years ago. Data show that no gas at all has flowed from Poland to Slovakia since March 2024, as Bratislava continues to instead rely on Russian supplies.
Ahead of the opening of the 100-euro million interconnection, the EU’s then energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, said that the pipeline represented “another step in helping this region to be fully integrated into the internal EU energy market, diversifying away from Russian gas”. However, it has remained largely idle in the three years since, according to data from the ENTSOG Transparency Platform, an EU gas flow aggregating website.
Apart from brief spikes of activity in late 2023 and early 2024, no gas has flowed from Poland to Slovakia. There have been more regular flows in the other direction, but the data show regular periods of many months in which the pipeline is not being used at all.
Gas flow (in millions of kilowatt-hours per day) through the interconnector from Poland to Slovakia (top chart) and Slovakia to Poland. Poland has interconnected links with almost all neighbouring countries, with the exception of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. The Polish-Slovak link is the only one to remain largely idle.
In comments to Notes from Poland, the Polish gas transmission operator, Gaz-System, admitted that “the level of utilisation is low”, saying that flows “depend on market demand”. Landlocked Slovakia has negligible domestic gas production and is almost entirely dependent on imported pipeline gas.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it continued to import Russian gas, citing contractual obligations to Gazprom. In 2023, a new government took office led by Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has criticised EU sanctions on Moscow and said that Russian gas remained essential for the Slovak economy.
Very pro-Russian, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico once channelled Umberto Eco by saying that death comes from the West and salvation from the East.
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