YALTA, Ukraine - Yalta is all about conferences and agreements. At the Livadia Palace in 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met to re-draw the map of Europe at the end of WW II.
At the same beautiful and historical place which was the summer home of the last of the Russian Tsars, Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister for Social Policy Sergiy Tigipko told a press conference on 4 October in the context of the Crimea Black Sea Economic Forum 2012 that Kiev is always ready and open for gas-price negotiations with Russia. But he stressed that while within the framework of commercial arrangements, Ukraine is ready for any concessions or agreements, Kiev “cannot agree to compromises to some strategic aspects. We cannot discuss political compromise”. He was responding to a question by New Europe on whether Ukraine would make concessions to Russia – for example selling its national oil and gas company Naftogaz or joining the Customs Union - in order to achieve a reduction in the price of Russian gas.
Clashes between Russia and Ukraine over gas prices led to suspended deliveries to Central and Western Europe in the winters of 2006 and 2009. Asked by New Europe if he foresees another gas crisis, Ukraine’s First Vice Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi told the press conference in Yalta the EU should not worry. “I believe that in the nearest future, in the nearest winter, there will be no crisis because we work within the frameworks of the agreement that has been signed. I see no problems for the EU first of all because of some troubles that may exist between Ukraine and Russia. I’m sure this winter will be okay,” he said.
Meanwhile, Edward Chow, a senior fellow in the Energy and National Security Programme at CSIS in Washington did not rule out the prospect of another gas crisis between Russia and Ukraine. “I would not be shocked if there were one because this government is now backed into a corner. It either accepts Russia’s terms and Russia’s terms are quite open and simple: Join the Eurasian Economic Community, forget about EU and share control of the international gas transit pipeline,” he told New Europe in Yalta. “Or if it finds for its own reasons that those terms are unacceptable, then we have a problem and a kind of problem that is not easily resolved,” he said.
Chow noted that regardless whether Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian authorities chose to heighten a gas dispute this winter or next winter, the probability of a crisis goes up every year. “We are almost overdue for one: 2006, 2009 and 2013 is coming up,” he said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Gazprom is pushing ahead with the planned South Stream via the Black Sea and South-Eastern Europe, bypassing Ukraine. Chow said that in the medium term and the long-term Ukraine matters less and less. However, he noted that South Stream probably wouldn’t be ready for another five years and in the meantime Ukraine is still important to Russia. But he also added that, given that Gazprom would like to control as many of the export routes to Europe as possible, the Russian gas giant may still want the Ukrainian pipeline system after it commits to building South Stream.
KGeropoulos@NEurope.eu
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