Gazprom (OGZPY) must play by the EU's competition rules, Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said Monday after Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted Brussels' probe of the energy giant.
Gazprom (OGZPY) must play by the EU's competition rules, Lithuanian
Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said Monday after Russian President Vladimir
Putin blasted
Brussels
'
probe of the energy giant.
"All Europe needs is that Gazprom, as an important gas supplier to Europe,
starts following European rules all over Europe, including central
Europe," Mr. Kubilius told Lithuanian public radio.
"The sooner it happens, the better it will be for Gazprom itself, and for
consumers in
Europe
," he added.
Mr. Kubilius dismissed allegations made on Sunday by Mr. Putin, who accused the
EU of trying to force Gazprom to sell struggling eastern European economies
cheap energy.
"The concern among Russian leaders demonstrates that the practice of
Gazprom in supplying gas to central
Europe
,
where it has had monopolistic rights since Soviet times, does not comply with
European fair competition rules," Mr. Kubilius said.
"The result of the EU probe should be that Gazprom follows the same rules
as Norwegian or
North Sea
gas suppliers. I don't hear
Norwegian gas suppliers complaining about European rules," he noted.
The EU said last week it had launched the probe over concerns that Gazprom is
hindering competition in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia, all of them once part of the communist
bloc.
Mr. Putin on Sunday condemned the move.
"United
Europe
wants to retain some
political influence and wants us to pay for it," he said, accusing the
European Commission of forcing Gazprom to shoulder the burden of
"subsidizing" European economies.
Gazprom is
Lithuania
's
only natural gas supplier--the country separated from the
Soviet
Union
in 1990 and joined the EU and NATO in 2004.
The two sides have long locked horns over pricing and
Lithuania
's
moves to implement EU reforms which Gazprom claims harms its business
interests.
The EU reform, which bars suppliers from also running a country's gas
distribution system, is a direct challenge to Gazprom which owns 37.1% of
Lithuanian gas distributor Lietuvos Dujos.
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