EU must speed up efforts to get independent from Russian fossil fuel - Germany's Scholz

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe needs to ramp up efforts to cut its dependency from Russian fossil fuel imports in the face of the latest crisis, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Brussels on Friday.

"All together, we are very, very well prepared for the difficult challenge linked to Russian fossil fuel imports," he told reporters as he arrived for the second day of an EU summit.

He said this was the reason why the bloc had not only imposed sanctions on Russian coal and oil at an early stage, but had as well worked on adjusting its infrastructure in a way that European countries can import gas from other countries, too.

"This is an effort that we need to speed up further now - and of course this is linked to big challenges but we will support each other," he said.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, editing by Kirsti Knolle)