EC: Moscow Summit Failed to Yield Results

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | January 17, 2009, Saturday // 00:00

The negotiations in Moscow to resume supply of Russian gas to Europe were constructive, but failed to yield results, the European Commission (EC) spokesperson in Moscow announced, cited by France Press and the Bulgarian BTA.

The planned talks between the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Yulya Timoshenko have not taken place. The two were supposed to meet after the conclusion of the international summit convened in Moscow to discuss possible solutions for the gas conflict.

Participants in the summit included the President of Armenia, the Prime Ministers of Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, the Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister, the Czech Minister of Industry and Trade and the Economy Minister of Slovakia.

A representative of the Bulgarian Energy Ministry stated earlier Saturday that the country did not sent their own high level representative, because they believed Bulgaria's representation by the European Commission was sufficient.

Slovakia was the only country, member of the EU, sending one of their Ministers to the summit. The Czech Minister was attending asa member of the official EC delegation.

The 5-member EC delegation was lead by the European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

In addition to PM Timoshenko, the Ukrainian group included the Energy Minister Yuri Prodan, the CEO of "Naftogaz" Oleh Dubyna and Bogdan Sokolovsky - Presidential Advisor for Energy Security.

It is still unclear while the scheduled talks between Putin and Timoshenko failed. Undisclosed sources, closed to the Russian side, are quoted as saying that Timoshenko "did not have the required mandate and came to the summit with empty hands".
Upon the summit's conclusion, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that there was an urgent need to create efficient legal norms to guarantee gas deliveries from the source to the consumers, adding he was hoping to see new international documents, addressing the matter.

"The existing ones are not satisfactory to us. The Charter is not applied and would not be applied in Russia," Medvedev said, cited by the Russian information agency ITAR-TASS.

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