Ukraine and EC Agree to Joint Position Ahead of Tuesday's Trilateral Gas Negotiations

Ukraine and European Commission have agreed to a joint position in advance of the next round of trilateral gas negotiations scheduled for Tuesday.

A statement issued by Naftogaz indicated that in addition to a consensus that the negotiations should result in an interim agreement which would guarantee the supply of Russia’s gas to Ukraine and for a stable flow of transit gas to the EU, the agreement should contain "clear cut guarantees of the supply of agreed gas volumes by Gazprom, on the one hand, and a guarantee of payments for the supplied gas by Naftogaz, on the other."
                                                                                                         
The joint position of the EC and Ukraine calls for an obligatory signing of binding documents between Naftogaz and Gazprom. Such documents should be legally binding on both sides and should exclude the possibility for any of the parties to unilaterally change the conditions.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yuriy Prodan, Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine, Andriy Kobolyev, CEO of Naftogaz of Ukraine  were amongst the representative of Ukraine who met with representatives of the EC including Günther Oettinger, Energy Commisioner and Klaus-Dieter Borchardt, Director of the Internal Energy Market at DG Energy.

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