Gas problem: European consumers don’t take the word of Brussels and Kiev

As the Kommersant has got to know, the European Commission, which was publically accused of inactivity on the gas problems by Vladimir Putin yesterday, has tried to solve the problem of gas transit through the Ukraine with help of European consumers. They were proposed to fill the underground gas storages of the Ukraine on their account (up to $4 billion are necessary for this). But Brussels couldn’t guarantee that pumped gas “wouldn’t disappear” in the Ukraine, so the idea created little stir. Experts think that the EU consumers will have to undertake risks of the transit reliability, taking into account the permanent gas non-payments of Kiev.

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin reproached the European Commission with absence of concrete proposals on the stabilization of the gas transit situation through the Ukraine. The next letter, sent by the Russian President to leaders of the European states, notes that since the previous Putin’s appeal at the beginning of April, only one meeting of the EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger with head of the Russian Ministry of Energy Alexander Novak has taken place. At the same time, Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia would transfer the gas supplies to prepayment basis from June 1 because of non-payments from Kiev.

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