Friday, January 9, 2009

EU Seeks To Finalize Russian Gas Monitoring Deal

A pressure gauge is seen at a Ukrainian gas compressor station in the village of Boyarka near Kiev January 9, 2009 (Konstantin Chernichkin - UKRAINE/Reuters)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) – The European Union sought to finalize details on Friday of a gas monitoring deal to allow the resumption of gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine, which have been cut off for days over a pricing row.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the EU presidency, flew to Kiev to meet Ukraine's leaders and "fine-tune the terms of the monitoring mission," a Czech source said.

The nine-day crisis cut gas supplies to hundreds of thousands of people in the Balkans, forced factories to shut down and disrupted deliveries as far west as France and Germany, while the continent faced freezing mid-winter temperatures.

The European Union receives a quarter of its gas supplies from Russia, 80 percent of which pass through Ukraine.

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