Brussels - The European Union on Tuesday welcomed the
resumption of gas flows to Europe, but warned that the protracted and
acrimonious dispute between Russia and Ukraine had severely damaged
their credibility as reliable suppliers.
'The main lesson that needs to be learned is that Russia and
Ukraine are not reliable suppliers. Europe must think about
alternative sources and pipelines,' Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech
Republic's foreign minister, told the European Parliament on behalf
of the EU presidency.
Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the EU's executive arm in Brussels,
the European Commission, said it was 'difficult to welcome something
that should not have happened in the first place.'
The commission president, who was frequently on the phone with
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian premier Yulia
Tymoshenko during the crisis, had harsh words for both leaders. The
two had often mystified EU officials by repeatedly failing to honour
their commitments prior to Tuesday's deal.
'I am very disappointed about the way the leaderships in those two
countries negotiated,' Barroso said.
'This is the first time in my life that I saw agreements being
systematically not implemented,' he said.
EU monitors deployed to both Ukraine and Russia confirmed that EU
clients of Russian gas giant Gazprom would be receiving about 335
million cubic metres of gas during the course of the day. This is
about the normal amount that EU clients were receiving before Russia
closed the taps, on January 7. The monitors also confirmed that
pressure in the Ukrainian pipelines was building up to normal levels.
The first EU country to receive supplies was Slovakia, which fully
relies on Russian gas crossing Ukraine.
The country of 5.3 million people was, along with Bulgaria, one of
the hardest hit by the standoff, with the shortages forcing the
government to order 1,000 companies to cut their gas consumption to a
minimum.
A spokesman for the country's main gas importer, SPP, said about 5
million cubic metres of gas per hour were reaching Slovakia by
mid-afternoon. The spokesman said his company would soon be passing
on the gas to Austria and the Czech Republic.
Meanwhile, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who played a
key mediating key during the dispute, countered Russian claims that
Ukraine had been siphoning off Russian gas destined for Europe.
'We do not have any information that Ukraine performed
unsanctioned siphoning after December 31,' Piebalgs said in Kiev.
Despite Tuesday's positive outcome, EU officials insisted that
crisis would have long-term implications for Europe.
Asked whether the EU should seek to reduce its dependency on
Russian gas arriving from the Ukraine, Barroso said: 'Yes, of
course.'
'One of the conclusions that we have to draw is that gas coming
from Russia through Ukraine was not secure,' he said.
Barroso called on EU member states to 'prepare for next winter' by
diversifying their energy sources and approving measures designed to
improve the bloc's energy security. The commission president also
criticized member states for blocking his plans to use 5 billion
euros (6.5 billion dollars) in unspent EU money to improve energy
interconnections between member states.
Addressing the parliament, Schwarzenberg said governments should
also increase their support for 'Nabucco', a planned 3,300-kilometre-
long pipeline designed to pipe gas from Azerbaijan to Austria.
The EU currently imports about a quarter of the gas it burns from
Russia. About 80 per cent of it reaches the bloc via Ukrainian
pipelines.
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