On the sidelines of the EU/Ukraine summit in Brussels on Thursday 24 November, the Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for the Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič, and the Ukrainian energy minister, Ihor Nasalyk, signed a memorandum of understanding for a strategic energy partnership between the EU and Ukraine, which will take over from their energy cooperation agreement of 2005.
This new framework will extend energy cooperation, which previously only covered energy security, nuclear safety, infrastructure and market reforms, to other areas, including energy efficiency and renewables, the decarbonisation of the economy and research. It will cover an initial period of ten years and will be implemented by annual programmes.
Commissioner for Energy and the Climate Miguel Arias Canete, stressed that this shows the recognition of the major reforms Ukraine has undertaken in its gas sector during the last two years. He went on to say that in order to enable the Ukrainian side to draw full benefit from the reform of the energy sector, reforms must continue and be extended to all areas, and that the EU would provide its unreserved support in this process.
This new partnership will also lay down the foundation for policy coordination, both on sharing the single market rules of the EU (through the Energy Community, of which Ukraine is a member) and achieving environmental protection and climate objectives, Canete said, going on to welcome Kiev's ratification of the Paris climate agreement.
On Thursday, the summit reaffirmed Ukraine's role as a strategic gas transit country for the EU and the importance of uninterrupted supplies of gas to the EU this winter. The Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko, pledged that Ukraine would continue to be a reliable partner for the transit of gas to the EU and that European consumers will be able to benefit from this over the coming winter.
Šefčovič, who has been angling for several months to relaunch the process of negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the EU to secure supplies of Russian gas to Ukraine, and its transit to the EU over winter 2016/2017, will discuss the dossier with the Russian authorities during his visit to Moscow on 25 November. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)