EU summit to mull over credit to Ukraine to pay for Russian gas

BRUSSELS, June 18 (Itar-Tass) - The meeting of the EU heads of state
and government will examine on Thursday the Russian initiative on European
Union's participation in crediting Ukraine to ensure timely payments for
gas so as to avoid a repetition of gas crises.
The EU expert Gas Coordination Group will gather before the summit in
Brussels. It is to give a comprehensive appraisal of the situation with
deliveries of Russian gas to Ukraine and its transit to Europe, Itar-Tass
learnt from representative of the European commissioner on energy Ferran
Tarradellas Espuni.
According to the representative, Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukrainy will be
invited to the meeting. However, they will participate only in the first
of two sittings of the Coordination Group.
The representative said that the Russian and Ukrainian sides will
spell out their vision of the situation at a morning meeting, while only
European experts and representatives of the European energy industry will
gather for the second meeting in the afternoon. They will discuss what
energy security measures should be taken, the representative of the
European commissioner added.
The meeting of the Coordination Group will also receive findings of a
delegation of European experts who collected information in Moscow and
Kiev on the situation in the gas sphere over the past week.
The findings of European experts will be also forwarded to head of the
European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso who will submit them to European
leaders on the summit's second day, Friday.
The question on crediting Ukraine will be settled only at the top
level - the summit of the European Union.
Espuni emphasised that this is the question to the Council (EU
summit), since it is more a political question. Experts of the Gas
Coordination Group, he continued, will zero in only on the technical side
of the problem: whether there will be interruptions in gas supplies, what
is the situation with gas pipelines, what is level of reserves, etc.
The head of the European Commission promised to raise this question at
the summit right after receiving the Russian proposal on crediting Ukraine
jointly. However, he made a reservation right at that time that, taking
into account the state of European funds, depleted by the crisis, odds of
granting a European credit to Ukraine are small.
Speaking in Luxembourg on June 16 at a meeting of the EU-Ukraine
Cooperation Council, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko expressed confidence
that it would be possible to avoid a new gas crisis. She noted that
Ukraine "is ready to use a civilised procedure of borrowing assets to pay
for Russian gas from European banks at commercial interest", since the
Ukrainian banking system, stricken by the crisis, is unable to respond
quickly to the situation".
Incidentally, Ukraine waits in July for a tranche of 3.8 billion US
dollars under the credit programme of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), said Timoshenko at a meeting with Polish and German foreign
ministers Radoslaw Sikorski and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, reported the
Ukrainian government press service.
"On June 24, we shall welcome an IMF mission to continue the
dialogue," Timoshenko said. She expressed hope that the IMF mission will
take a positive decision on granting Ukraine the third tranche by the
results of its visit. "We hope to get another tanche even by the end of
July," the premier added.
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