EU considers cut in Russian gas dependency as crisis ends (Roundup)

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.