Brussels, 12/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - As we were going to press on Monday 12 May, no information had filtered through from that day's meeting at expert level between the EU, Russia and Ukraine on the security of Russian gas supply, in relation to Ukraine's debt to Gazprom.
This meeting aimed to prepare the ground for a further ministerial meeting in mid-May between the Energy Commissioner, Günther Oettinger, the Russian Energy Minister, Alexander Novak, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yuri Prodan, following the one held on Warsaw on 2 May (see EUROPE 11071). According to a Russian diplomatic source, the next trilateral ministerial meeting could be held in Athens on 16 May, on the sidelines of the informal meeting of the European Energy Ministers. The Commission went no further than to announce, at around midday on Monday, that this meeting would take place “soon”. Oettinger is to meet Prodan on Tuesday, in the framework of the visit by the Ukrainian government to the Commission in Brussels. (EH)