Ukraine, Russia in new talks to end gas row before winter
BRUSSELS/ MOSCOW Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday resumed EU-brokered talks in Brussels aimed at ending a months-long supply cut that also threatens to hit parts of Europe this winter.
European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told reporters the “common ambition” was to clinch “an interim solution” to assure supplies through the cold season.
Speaking after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Oettinger said he would meet with his Russian counterpart before all three sat down together.
Oettinger said he hoped it would be the last of several trilateral meetings, including one in Brussels last week, but told German TV ZDF earlier that chances of an agreement here were “50 per cent.”
After last week’s meeting broke up, Oettinger had said he hoped for an agreement this week.
Russia in mid-June cut supplies to Ukraine, demanding the new pro-western government in Kyiv pay sharply higher prices in advance for new deliveries after it ran up what Moscow claimed was an unpaid bill of $5.3 billion (4.1 billion euros).
Oettinger said he held bilateral talks with Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan and the head of Ukraine’s Naftogaz before he was to meet his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak and the head of Russia’s Gazprom.
“Our common ambition is to come to an interim solution, to come to a winter package… to solve our security of supply,” Oettinger said.
Oettinger said hurdles still had to be cleared, including Ukraine’s settling unpaid bills and paying in advance for its purchases.
In order for Russia to resume supplies to Ukraine for the winter, he told ZDF, old bills must be paid. In total, $4.6 billion are needed, he said.
But “Ukraine has huge payment problems. It is practically insolvent,” Oettinger told the German public TV channel. “It has already obtained billions in aid” from the International Monetary Fund and the EU and “must use some of it to buy gas, he said. At the same time, Kyiv has to cover other expenses, such as “rebuilding its roads” or “buying weapons,” the commissioner said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s lower house of parliament is ready to cooperate with the new assembly in Ukraine, its chairman said on Wednesday, although it will be dominated by pro-western forces.
Parties that want to move Kyiv further away from Moscow’s orbit towards mainstream Europe will lead the Verkhovna Rada after an election on Sunday, held despite fighting between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine.