Ukraine-Gazprom.V.Putin.Встреча с СМИ.08.01.09.Part 5
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with foreign media.08.01.09.Part 5
Председатель Правительства Российской Федерации В.В.Путин провел встречу(пресс-конференцию) с представителями иностранных СМИ.08.01.09.Part 5
As you know, a delegation of Gazprom is in Brussels today. It has already met with the European Commission. We have proposed, or rather agreed with the proposal of the German Chancellor, Mrs Merkel (she rang up yesterday) and we had a talk. In my opinion, she made a very good proposal: to send international observers to the gas pumps. We fully agree with that. We believe it should be done as quickly as possible. We are ready to have these observers on our territory. Of course they should also go to Ukrainian territory, to the stations which pump our gas towards Europe via all the main pipelines: to the Balkans, to Central Europe and to Western Europe.
Gazprom has proposed to the European Commission a protocol on the procedure of the functioning of such an auditing commission and its possible participants. From the Russian side the document has already been signed by the Energy Ministry and by Gazprom. Unfortunately, Mr Barroso and the gentleman - I would hate to distort his name - the head of the Energy Commission... yes, Piebalgs, our partners from the European Commission have so far refused to sign the protocol because they say it calls for a mandate from all the European Union countries. I think this is in a way a moment of truth. Those who want to solve the problem look for ways to solve it, and those who are not ready to solve it look for excuses why this or that action is impossible.
I understand that European Union Foreign Ministers are meeting in Prague today. Tomorrow gas experts will have a meeting and on Monday there will be a meeting of the energy ministers. Given the dramatic conditions, approvals could be obtained within two hours. I think the Protocol is necessary because - as I have told you - the Ukrainian side has refused to allow international observers on its territory. If they agree to this today, let them sign the document.
We believe that the work of such a control commission should involve the representatives both of Naftogaz of Ukraine and Gazprom as well as representatives of the companies that are the main recipients of our gas and representatives of the European Commission. We hope that the issue will be resolved expeditiously. We don't want a group of men and women to come to Kiev, and just sit in a hotel and sip horilka. We want them to be in the crossing points, at the points where our gas enters and leaves the territory of Ukraine in the direction of Western Europe. We are ready for this work and we await a decision by our European partners.
Thank you.
Now I am ready to answer any of your questions
You, please.
S. Kanchani (RAI): Good evening, Mr Putin. Many analysts in the West speak about political pressure on President Yushchenko. Are you aware of this aspect of the crisis with Kiev? What is your reaction to this criticism?
Vladimir Putin: I have just given you a detailed account of how the dialogue went. If we buy gas from Central Asia at $340 per 1000 cubic meters and offer to sell it at 250, what do you make of it? And yet Ukrainian partners refuse to sign that contract. Do you call that political pressure?
If you are interested in details I will tell you more, something that surprised me a great deal: 250 is expensive, we will sign up to 235. This is not a joke. This is serious. I told them: all right, let us do it this way: you sign up for 250, we will allow you to draw gas from storage facilities on Ukrainian territory and we will together sell it to the West at a high price. You will get an extra margin and the real price this year for you will thus be 235. They said, no, because if we sign up to this it will be used against us in the internal political struggle in the run-up to elections in Ukraine.
So, if you want to speak about political aspects of the problem they are not international, but internal. That is the problem.
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