EU zegt 'nee' tegen Russische pijpleiding, nu gesprekken met Oekraïne worden hervat (en)

BRUSSELS - The EU has given Kiev a gift on Russian gas, as Ukrainian negotiators held a first round of new talks in Brussels.

It said Russia's "South Stream" pipeline - designed to bypass Ukraine, costing it billions in lost transit fees -violates EU law.

The statement came from Klaus-Dieter Borchardt, a senior European Commission official, in the European Parliament on Wednesday (4 December).

Referring to pacts between Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia and Russia, Borchardt said: "The commission has looked into these intergovernmental agreements [IGAs] and came to the conclusion that none of them is in compliance with EU law."

A spokeswoman said on Thursday that if they go ahead, the commission will trigger "infringement proceedings."

EU "unbundling" and "third-party" laws force energy firms to separate production and distribution assets and give them the right to use each other's pipes. But the IGAs give Russia exclusive control of South Stream from Siberian gas fields to EU consumers' homes.

EU officials say the South Stream statement has nothing to do with new talks on an EU-Ukraine free trade treaty.

They also say they will not make "cheap deals" with Kiev to salvage the trade pact.

But the South Stream move squares with Ukraine's threat to leave the the European Energy Community, a club of south-east European states, due to lack of EU "solidarity."

EU countries have also dropped demands for Ukraine to free its former PM, Yulia Tymoshenko.

The gas news came one day before Ukrainian envoys arrived in Brussels for talks on reviving the trade pact.

The Ukrainian delegation was led by deputy central bank chief Mykola Udovychenko and deputy foreign minister Andrii Olefirov.

They met with mid-level diplomats in the EU foreign service.

One contact involved in the talks told EUobserver they were "not bad," despite the rift in EU-Ukraine relations after Ukraine said No to the trade treaty last week.

Another contact said Ukrainian deputy PM Serhiy Arbuzov is likely to come to Brussels next week for high-level meetings.

The EU has refused to reopen negotiations on the trade pact: five and a half kilogrammes' worth of documents, which took years six years to put together

Instead, Arbuzov is drafting new terms on "implementation" of the treaty.

Ukraine is calling it an EU "Marshall Plan," referring to US funding to rebuild Europe after World War II.

It will detail how much extra money Ukraine wants in order to put into life individual EU directives or industrial standards.

It will also contain safeguards to ensure the money - up to €10 billion - is not stolen or misused.

The fresh talks come amid ongoing pro-EU protests in Kiev.

The Swedish and Polish foreign ministers at a meeting with Ukrainian PM Mykola Arbuzov on Thursday urged him to curb police violence.

Meanwhile, Russia and the US spoke of "chaos" and "hysteria" at a meeting, also on Thursday, of the OSCE, a Vienna-based pro-democracy club, in Kiev.

"This situation is connected to some Europeans' hysteria, which was caused by the fact that Ukraine exercised its sovereign right in deciding not to sign an agreement that Ukrainian experts and the administration found unprofitable at this stage," Russian FM Sergei Lavrov told press.

US state department official Viktoria Nuland noted: "This is Ukraine’s moment to meet the aspirations of its people or to disappoint them, and risk descending into chaos."