Russische waarschuwing legt Europese angst voor staken gasleveranties bloot (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU on Thursday (5 March) expressed concern that the January gas crisis could be repeated at any moment, after a Russian warning it would cut supplies this weekend.

"We are very concerned with the latest news," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso i said at a press conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev in Brussels.

"We need to have confidence in Russia as a supplier country and Ukraine as a transit country. That's why we have kept our monitors. Our monitors are there and we are ready to send more if necessary."

"Today we are at risk again," Mr Stanishev added.

The remarks came after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin i said that if Ukraine did not pay its February gas bill by Saturday "it [would] lead to the stoppage of our supplies of our energy both to consumers in Ukraine itself and maybe also to our consumers in Europe."

Ukraine settled the full amount of €290 million a few hours later. Ukraine diplomats had before the Barroso statement told Brussels there was no risk of non-payment, depicting the Putin warning as an attempt to make Ukraine look bad as an EU gas transit partner.

A Russia-Ukraine dispute over gas prices saw Russia stop supplies for 12 days in January, causing hundreds of millions of euros of economic damage to EU states. The crisis saw the EU send 22 monitors to Russia and Ukraine gas stations amid uncertainty on who to blame. Around six are still in place.

The latest scare originated from complex events inside Ukraine.

Masked men from Ukraine's secret services, the SBU, on Wednesday raided the head offices of Ukraine state-owned transit firm Naftogaz in Kiev. The SBU on Thursday also tried to raid the offices of a Naftogaz subsidiary, UkrTransgGaz.

The action relates to a political scrap between Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and about €2 billion worth of disputed gas stocks.

Ukraine media speculate that the Yushchenko-loyal SBU was trying to confiscate Tymoshenko-sponsored legal documents enabling Naftogaz to seize the disputed stocks from another company, the allegedly Yushchenko-linked RosUkrEnergo.

The raids raised the prospect of a legal paralysis of Naftogaz, which would have prevented it from settling the Russian debt.

"Gas relations continue to be extremely untransparent," analyst Volodomyr Yermolenko from Ukraine NGO Internews told EUobserver. "Big business interests in Ukraine and probably Russia are behind these problems. The EU could once again become a hostage and there is no guarantee the [January] situation with gas cuts will not be repeated."