Monday, 12 January 2009
The Ukraine has agreed to sign the protocol for the monitoring of the Russian gas transit, which was signed by the EU and Russia on Saturday.
The news was announced Monday by a representative of the European Commission who said the deal was achieved after the EC President Jose Manuel Barroso telephoned with the Russian PM Vladimir Putin and then with Ukraine's PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
The news has not been officially confirmed by the Ukrainian government.
Tymoshenko has agreed that the Ukraine would sign the protocol anew without attaching to it a separate declaration, in which it claims it had no debts to Gazprom, and had not appropriated any quantities of Russian gas destined solely for transit. The Ukraine did sign the protocol but only on the condition that its declaration would be appended to it.
The Russian side has described the declaration as unacceptable. The re-signing of the monitoring protocol without the attachment of the Ukrainian declaration is expected to provide for the restart of the transit of Russian gas supplies to Europe via the Ukraine.
