Poland has filled its natural gas storage facilities to 96% of their capacity, the highest level in the European Union, far above the 67% average recorded across the EU, as reported by the Polish public radio station Polskie Radio. This achievement has been acknowledged by the European Commission, which praised Poland on September 3 for largely meeting the EU’s target for winter preparedness. In contrast, Germany has a storage rate of 55%, one of the lowest in the EU, ahead only of Latvia and the Netherlands. Despite having the largest total storage capacity in the Union, Germany has not filled its reserves as much as Poland. This difference in preparedness has led to questions in Warsaw about whether Poland might be called upon to supply gas to Germany or other neighboring countries in the long term. However, for now, the answer is no—or at least not automatically. Simply having more filled gas reserves does not create an obligation to share. An EU solidarity mechanism exists, but it can only be activated in the case of a true emergency. Specifically, this would require a member state to be unable to ensure gas supply to essential structures like hospitals and schools. Even in such a case, the affected country would first need to declare the highest level of crisis in the EU, exhaust all other market options, and formally request assistance from countries connected by pipeline before any sharing obligation would apply. This threshold has never been reached. The mechanism has not been triggered, even during the height of the European energy crisis in 2022. Today, officials consider its use a purely theoretical scenario, given the resilience demonstrated by the EU's energy market. The Commission’s recent assessment, following a meeting of the EU's gas coordination group on September 3, revealed no immediate risk to supply security, although storage levels are lower than those of previous years in much of the continent. Member states and the Commission believe current reserves will still be able to reach sufficient levels before winter. The solidarity framework itself originated in Poland. After gas disputes with Russia disrupted supplies between 2006 and 2009, Warsaw encouraged the EU to adopt stricter rules on energy solidarity, mainly motivated by the desire to ensure its own supply. At the time, few had predicted that Poland could one day find itself on the other side of the mechanism, as a potential source of aid rather than a country seeking help.