EU strikes deal with Russia to turn on gas
The European Union said today gas supplies should restart after it struck a deal with Russia on supervising the flow of gas through Ukraine.
But officials could not say when many homes and businesses across Europe could turn on their heating again after two days without gas during freezing winter weather.
Russia cut off the natural gas it sends to Europe through the Ukraine on Wednesday when a payment dispute escalated. Russia claims Ukraine siphoned off gas for its own use. Ukraine denies this.
Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU presidency, said a deal brokered with Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday had agreed on how monitors should check the amount of Russian gas entering and leaving Ukraine.
“This deployment should lead to the Russian supplies of gas to EU member states being restored,” the Czech government said in a statement.
Ukraine’s stance on the agreement was not immediately known. The officials also did not give details on who would monitor the gas or when the supplies might restart.
EU monitors will go to Ukraine today but it is unclear when Russia would start pumping gas again. The gas takes up to 36 hours to travel across Ukraine to the EU borders.
Russia’s state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom had insisted that Russians be among the observers in Ukraine. Kiev had agreed to EU monitors, not Russians.
Most Russian gas sold to European customers passes through Ukrainian pipelines.
Ukraine’s Naftogaz has promised that the first gas supplies will go to Bulgaria, where thousands of homes are without heating and factories were shuttered when the gas ran out.
Russia stopped all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on January 1 but kept supplies flowing to Europe through Ukraine’s pipelines until Wednesday, when all deliveries stopped.
At least 15 nations – Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey – reported a halt in Russian gas shipments by Wednesday. Germany and Poland also reported substantial drops in supplies.
The gas dispute came amid a major cold snap. At least 11 people froze to death this week in Europe, including 10 in Poland, where temperatures plunged to -25C.
EU governments have criticised Russia and Ukraine, saying it was unacceptable to see homes unheated, businesses closing and schools shut down in the middle of winter because neither Russia nor Ukraine could stick to its supply contracts.
Mr Putin insists that Ukraine must pay the current European price for natural gas, which is more than twice what Ukraine paid last year. Russia then would agree to double the fee it pays to ship that gas over Ukrainian pipelines to Europe, he said, a change from Gazprom’s earlier stance that it would not pay more in transit fees.
Ukraine, however, was unlikely to agree to that arrangement. Its latest public offer was £157 (€174) per 1,000 cubic meters, up from last year’s price of £120 (€133), but nowhere near the latest Russian public demand of £300 (€334).
Only by moving to a transparent market arrangement, Mr Putin said, could Russia and Ukraine prevent a repeat of the gas dispute that has led to a shut-off of Russian gas supplies to more than a dozen countries.
Mr Putin has blamed Ukraine’s political infighting and what he described as high-level corruption for the crisis. Ukrainian officials claimed Russia was trying to destroy Naftogaz and the Ukrainian economy during the global financial meltdown.
Europe depends on Russia for one-quarter of its natural gas, and about 80% of that is shipped through pipelines crossing Ukraine. Other smaller pipelines run through Belarus and Turkey.
The lack of heat was wearing on many, especially in eastern Europe. Angry Bulgarians protested in front of the Ukrainian Embassy in Sofia on Thursday, holding signs that said “We are not hostages” and accusing Russia and Ukraine of being “gas terrorists”.
Manufacturers in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia were slammed by government-decreed gas rationing or outright shortages. Bulgarian economy minister Petar Dimitrov said 152 companies had reported losses totalling £4m (€4.4m) a day.
