Updated 4:06 p.m. Moscow time
KIEV, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – Kiev has already handed over its gas debt repayment proposals to the European Commission, Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan said Wednesday.
"We sent these proposals late on Monday… to the European Commission," Prodan said. "We do not have to send them [to Russia]. We send them to the European Commission, and the commission then agrees these proposals with the Russian side," he added commenting on a statement made by Gazprom's CEO Alexey Miller earlier on Wednesday. According to Miller, Gazprom has received no official comments from Ukraine regarding the debt settlement schedule.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Prodan announced on Monday that another round of gas talks between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union may take place next week. The exact date is not known yet and may be announced in the next two days, Russia’s Minister of Energy Aleksander Novak said on Tuesday.
During a ministerial gas meeting held in Berlin on September 26, Moscow and the European Commission proposed the so-called winter package, the deal that would seek Ukraine pay $3.1 billion of its debt to Russia by the end of the year in exchange for gas deliveries during winter months at $385 per 1,000 cubic meters.
Ukraine is not satisfied with the package saying it wants to agree the debt repayment schedule, as well as terms and schedules of future gas deliveries and insists on amending the current gas contract with Russia in order to formally authorize reverse deliveries of Russian gas to Ukraine from Europe.
