The European Commission, Russia and Ukraine are unlikely to reach a sensible agreement on the continuation of Russian gas transit through Ukraine, according to Yuriy Vitrenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian company Naftogaz, speaking in Brussels on Tuesday 5 March.
At a conference organised by the European Policy Centre (EPC), Vitrenko added that Russian gas transit through Ukraine would be suspended in 2020, when the Nord Stream 2 pipeline becomes operational (see EUROPE 12206).
Trilateral talks on the future of gas transit through Ukraine will resume in May (see EUROPE 12176). The current contract regulating the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine expires at the end of 2019.
“There will be no gas transit through Ukraine in 2020 [...] I do not see any optimism or grounds to expect that a reasonable agreement will be reached and that there will be a continuation of gas transit via Ukraine”, Vitrenko said. In his opinion, Russia will no longer need to use the Ukrainian route to deliver gas to the European Union once the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is built and put into operation in 2020. According to Vitrenko, the only way to ensure that transit through Ukraine is maintained after 2019 is for Europe to say “that there will be no Nord Stream 2 unless the route through Ukraine is secured”. He added that Ukraine would lose about 4% of its GDP if Russia halted the gas transit. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)