Putin firm on EU energy charter
By Jerome Hart,WNS EU Correspondent
LONDON - Russian President Vladimir Putin has resisted EU calls to sign an existing international treaty on investment and trade in energy. But says he thinks Russia and the EU can agree binding rules. They begin talks on a new strategic partnership in the next few weeks, and Mr Putin says he is confident it would be possible to find common approaches. At an EU summit in Finland, Mr Putin also hit out at Georgian leaders, accusing them of building up forces.
The EU has been trying for years to get Russia to sign the Energy Charter Treaty without success. It now wants to enshrine many of the treaty's principles into the new framework agreement with Russia. The aim is to make it easier for European companies to invest in the Russian energy sector, and to use Russian pipelines to export the oil and gas they produce. The pact would also be designed to ensure that Russia treated all European countries equally, and to lay the basis for a long-term trade partnership.
Russia supplies a quarter of the oil and gas consumed in the EU, and the proportion is set to rise sharply in coming decades. Mr Putin suggested that Russia could agree to most of the charter's principles when negotiations begin. "We are not against the principles that are included in the charter, but we believe that that certain provisions of the charter should be defined better," he said. "I am quite confident that we will be in a position to develop common approaches." Mr Putin echoed European leaders by saying that energy co-operation needed to be rooted in the principles of predictability of energy markets and the mutual interdependence of suppliers and consumers.
posted by wnsworld @ 11:04 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home