Dmytro Kuleba, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, said that the country didn’t grow into resuming direct gas supplies from Russia.
He pointed out that the Ukrainian gas market should work only according to the EU rules and meet demands of the Third Energy Package while the country’s energy system should be integrated into European one. “The European Union rules don’t state that you can’t buy gas of a certain country,” he noted.
Kuleba also stressed that Kiev can’t prohibit Ukrainian companies to purchase Gazprom’s gas, according to the agreement between them. At the same time, Gazprom could be a participant of the Ukrainian market only according to European standards. “It won’t have monopoly, it won’t have an opportunity to impose its conditions by bribing officials; it will be one of players,” Interfax Ukraine cites its source.
Moreover, the Ukrainian side didn’t rule out that at some point, Naftogaz would start direct gas purchasing from Gazprom. According to Kuleba, such a scenario would meet market mechanisms eliminating blackmailing and “the gas needle.” “I am sure that we will leave all this in the past,” the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration said.
