Bloc will not stand for its gas security being 'taken hostage'
-- PHOTO: REUTERS
KIEV: The European Union has demanded that Moscow and Kiev work out their gas dispute by today, accusing the two sides of taking its supplies hostage in the dead of winter.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU presidency, warned yesterday that the bloc would toughen its response if the flow of gas to a Europe shivering in temperatures of almost minus 25 deg C is not back onstream by today.
'If the supply is not restored by (today) we will see a stronger intervention from the (EU) presidency and the EU as such,' he told journalists.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told state-run energy giant Gazprom yesterday to cease all deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine.
But European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso was working the phones to ratchet up pressure on Mr Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko to restore supplies.
A commission spokesman said Mr Barroso told the two leaders: 'It is unacceptable that the EU's gas supply security is being taken hostage to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
'The two countries' reputation as reliable partners to the EU is at stake and Ukraine and Russia must find a stable and long-term solution on how to guarantee reliable gas supplies.'
The EU received backing from the International Energy Agency, which said of the halt to supplies: 'This is completely unacceptable, given that European customers are not a party in this dispute.'
In Kiev, the Ukrainian government said Ms Tymoshenko had agreed to 'immediately' allow EU technical observers into Ukraine to monitor gas supplies.
Russia is the world's biggest natural gas producer and provides about one-quarter of the gas used in the EU. About 80 per cent of that passes though Ukraine.
At least a dozen European states, including Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were reporting complete halts of Russian gas supplies amid freezing temperatures yesterday.
Romania has declared a state of emergency while 70,000 households in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo spent the night without heat.
Top officials from Gazprom and Ukrainian group Naftogaz are due in Brussels today to discuss the conflict with EU officials.
