Brussels, 03/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - One of the conclusions the EU should draw from the recent gas crisis is that the Energy Charter does not work properly and should be amended or even replaced by another instrument more binding on transit countries like Ukraine, the Russian ambassador to the EU said on Tuesday. Speaking to the press a few days before the third meeting between the European Commission and the Russian government, in Moscow on 6 February, Vladimir Chizhov said that the Energy Charter (which Russia refuses to ratify) had “lost a lot of credibility” during the crisis, since “Ukraine, which has signed and ratified the text, did not apply it”. It was “obvious” that the mechanisms on transit in the Charter “did not work properly” and that “they should be revised or replaced altogether by something different, “Chizhov said. When asked if Russia would, then, reject the EU wish to build the principles of the Energy Charter into the future EU-Russia partnership agreement, which is currently under negotiation, Chizhov replied, “it is too early” to answer that question, as discussion on the energy chapter of the agreement had yet to begin. At any rate, Moscow wanted energy cooperation with the EU to be “based on market principles,” he said. The next negotiation meeting on the new framework agreement is scheduled for 13 February. The Russian ambassador also requested on Tuesday that the EU extend the “early warning system” that it set up with Russia in energy transit countries, including Ukraine. “This was not a crisis of (gas) supply, but of transit,” he pointed out. (H.B./transl.rt)