Gas Summit in Moscow on January 17-UPDATE

It was initiated by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and was named International Conference on Insuring Russian Gas Supplies to European Consumers. Besides the Russian President, the Armenian President, the Ukrainian, Kazakh, Belarusian, Moldavian, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s and Serbian PMs took part in the summit. EU was represented by Energy Comissioner Andris Piebalgs and Czech Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Riman.

Dmitry Medvedev proposed several decisions to resolve the problem of gas transit halt: international consortium, $1 bln irrevocable credit in European bank. Though none of it was finally accepted, Medvedev plans to moot the problem during G8 and G20 summits in London. In his opinion, existing energy sphere regulation documents, including The Energy Charter Treaty, are unsatisfactory for Russia.

Russian President also stressed the importance of gas supplies diversification. In return Belarusian PM suggested constructing the second branch of Yamal-Europe pipeline through Belarus. It would take only a year and a half, while South Stream and Nord Stream projects are to start operating only in 2012.

But according o EU Commissioner, Europe is not interested in the ways to insure gas supplies, it looks forward to solve the problem as soon as possible.

Czech Republic, which is now a Chairman of EU, put an official statement expressing insufficiency of the Moscow summit. On the contrary, the results of Putin-Tymoshenko over-night talks left the Eurocommission content. That makes the summit itself successful, the Russian President’s administration said in an official statement.

Author: Ksenia Kochneva