Brussels, 17/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - At their meeting in Moscow on 16 March, the G8 energy ministers (UK, United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, Germany, France and Italy) remained divided on how to respond to current energy supply issues. The US and Russia agreed on the idea of boosting nuclear energy, but the other 6 countries want more short-term investment in fossil fuels. The G8 final statement said that for the countries that desire it, massive development of safe and reliable nuclear energy is crucial to diversify long-term energy supplies in an environmentally acceptable manner. In response to the idea of a global plan to develop nuclear energy, unveiled in January this year by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US administration outlined a similar imitative to its partners on Thursday. The idea was not greeted with much enthusiasm by EU countries - French industry minister Francois Loos said on Wednesday that the spectacular ideas were 'interesting' but not at all tangible, while German energy minister Georg Wilhelm Adamowitsch said it was an overall plan, but Germany had its own ideas. EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said it was difficult to reach a common position on nuclear energy because it is still highly controversial, as shown, for example, by the gap between France, which staunchly backs nuclear power, and Germany, which is gradually shutting down its nuclear power stations.
Three months on from the dispute between Russia and the Ukraine over gas supplies, the EU has still not been given any concrete reassurance by Moscow over EU concerns about the reliability of EU energy imports from Russia. Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin announced at the February 2006 G8 finance meeting that Russia would gradually be giving independent gas producers access to the gas pipelines of Russian energy giant Gazprom, as desired by the EU, but on Thursday, Khristenko backed Gazprom's rejection of this idea. Similarly, the EU was given no assurances by Russia on Thursday that it would actually ratify the energy charter (to improve the investment climate in Russia) or the transit agreement.