“It has become better over the weekend. We are in close contact with the member states,” EU energy spokeswoman Marlene Holzner told a regular briefing.

She said Bulgaria, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Greece were now receiving normal import levels, while supplies to Romania, Germany and Italy were increasing, but were not yet fully restored.

The European Commission maintains the situation does not constitute a crisis, with countries being able to meet their needs using storage facilities and other market measures.

In Italy, where demand reached all-time highs following a sixth straight day of curtailed supply from Russia, Italian Industry Minister Corrado Passera described the situation as “critical” on Monday.

Italy’s gas emergency committee, which brings together Industry Ministry officials with ENI and gas transmission operator Snam, is due to meet later on Monday.

Gas consumption hit a record high on Sunday and is expected to peak between Monday and Tuesday.

Measures that the committee could recommend include turning down communal heating, switching some generating plants to fuel oil use and interrupting supplies to some businesses.

Although Italy received nearly 30 percent less gas than requested from Russia on Friday and Saturday, it has offset drops with increased imports from Algeria as well as by extracting stored gas.

“We reacted with more gas from Algeria, and this allows us to say that there won’t be problems for the next few days. We’ll make another assessment Thursday or Friday,” Eni Chief Executive Officer Paolo Scaroni told state radio GR1.

A mild winter leading up to the cold snap means Italy’s storage is well stocked to handle above-average demand, at 60 percent full, market sources said. Italy has about 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of working gas storage, and 5.2 bcm in strategic reserves, which can only be tapped following an official decree.

However, bad weather and stormy seas have interrupted operations at Italy’s Rovigo liquefied natural gas terminal, leading to fears of delays to gas shipments on which Italy increasingly depends.

Gas flows from the terminals into the transmission system fell on Monday.

Italy depends on imports for 90 percent of its gas needs and gets around 30 percent of its imports from Russia.

Gazprom said on Saturday it had brought supplies to European countries back to normal after lowering them “for a few days,” but was unable to meet increased demand.

Arctic temperatures set gas prices soaring at European hubs. In Britain, Europe’s biggest gas market, spot gas prices rose to their highest since early 2006.

Unlike previous politically sensitive cutoffs of Russian gas, the six-day long reduction in supply to Europe stems from cold weather in Russia that has increased its domestic demand.

The shortfall was a reminder of the Russian gas supply halts to Europe at the height of winter in 2006 and 2009 due to a spat between Russia and Ukraine, which stands on the gas transit route to the EU, over pricing.