Europe Showed Itself As An Absolutely Untrustworthy Partner
aku, Fineko/abc.az. Yesterday in Brussels Europe (the status of which is transferred to the European Union) showed itself as an untrustworthy partner, at least in energy sector.
Negotiations on Ukrainian gas problems and associated with it transit of Russian gas to the EU lasted for 10 hours and ended fruitlessly. The only result that the parties managed to achieve was that they arranged for another meeting within the next five days to discuss sources and possibilities of European support for Ukraine to purchase Russian gas for this winter.
It was expected before the negotiations that the EU would allocate about EUR 2 bn to Ukraine, as its new associated member, for purchase of up to 4 bn cu m of Russian gas at the price of $385 for 1,000 cu m. However, yesterday “suddenly” it became clear that Europe was not going to pay for its new “member” and was looking for non-financial ways out of the collision associated with the insolvency of Ukraine.
As a result, Günther Oettinger, EU Commissioner for Energy (leaving his post in November) cast prudence to the winds trying to talk round real problems. The proposals came down to the idea, which Ukraine and Russia had already been through: the third party (a mediator) should buy Russian gas and resell it to Ukraine. Ukrainian oligarch Firtash was such mediator in times of Kuchma and Yushchenko, while for Ukraine integrated with the EU Oettinger proposed a European mediator.
RF rejected that idea, as even in times of the first Presidential term of Barack Obama the then Prime Minister Putin said to his American vis-à-vis: “I’ve already seen that film”. As a result, yesterday the EU demonstrated that it was not ready to support its actively integrated partner (Ukraine) in the most difficult period.
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