Europe

Home page

Europe

EU ready to send Observers to defuse Russia-Ukraine gas dispute

09 January 2009 10:42 (UTC +04:00)

Brussels . Alexander Kin â€“APA. In a bid to bypass attempts by Russia and Ukraine to blame each other for the worsening natural-gas shortages in Europe, the EU has offered to send in its own observers to supervise the pipeline system responsible for European deliveries.
The offer to send observers is a measure of the desperation gripping the EU. Any observer mission in the former Soviet Union is fraught with complications, and it is only with great reluctance that the EU undertakes monitoring duties in any given dispute. Ferran Tarradellas, the European Commission’s energy spokesman, said the EU is ready to do "whatever it takes" to ensure gas supplies resume, including manning the pipelines with its own monitors.
"At this point in time the commission is open to consider the possibility of sending observers to Ukrainian and Russian entry points of gas [pipelines] to monitor the flows of gas from Russia through Ukraine to the European Union -- if this is going to help the immediate restoration of full volumes of supply to European Union customers," Tarradellas said.