Artificial problem, manufactured and entertained by the inept EU itself. The EU bureaucrats hate Putin so much that they refuse any suggestion coming from Russia: Gazprom always advised long term contracts because they cannot guarantee sudden deliveries of large supplementary quantities of gas. Their explanation makes perfect sense: the massive supplementary quantities of gas require supplementary pipelines and concentrator stations which imply massive additional investments and a long time to be built. Without long-term contracts, no matter how noisy the anti-Putin hysteria runs, Gazprom does not make such investments – a business logic which escapes the EU Putin haters while Gazprom has always fulfilled all their contracts. The EU bureaucrats are also played by the lobby of the market speculators, thus the EU avoided new long-term contracts motivating they want the gas price to be dictated by the “market mechanism” (a euphemism to cover for speculation). And this is where the EU is now: at the mercy of their beloved “market mechanism” (speculators). To make things worse the EU Russophobe clowns have succeeded to convince Russians their hate is forever so Russia has pivoted to (the EU global competitor) China for long-term, stable, massive deliveries of energy and other natural resources. The EU ineptitude will make the peoples of the continent suffer in multiple aspects for many decades to come.