German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Thursday called on Russia
and the Ukraine
to start negotiations again and resolve their gas dispute.
Speaking to reporters after bilateral talks here, Merkel said there's the risk
that Russia will
lose trust due to the current gas dispute with the Ukraine
which has also disrupted gas deliveries to Europe.
"I think there is the risk that confidence in Russia
could be lost in the long term," Merkel told reporters. She added she will
address the issue with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in talks Friday in
Berlin.
The incidences of the past weeks are quite severe," Merkel said.
"It is our joint demand that we here in Europe will
get again gas deliveries and call on Russia
as well as the Ukraine
to create conditions for this," she added.
Brown said that Europe must act together in a bid to
help solve the gas dispute.
Both leaders also said the global financial system needs to be reformed in the
wake of the financial market crisis.
"What we've discovered in this international financial crisis is that the
institutions that were built for the age of the 1940s and 50s and 60s are no
longer adequate for the problems of 2009," Brown said, adding that this
also applied to climate change and energy security issues.
"There will have to be a better international architecture for the
future...I believe the future international economic architecture will be one
of the things that people will want to discuss at the G20 in April and I
believe that if the world is going to solve problems that are global we need to
have coordination that is global as well."
Leaders of the Group of 20 nations are due to meet in London
April 2.
He said he "welcomes" Merkel's proposal on reforming the global
financial system.
Merkel has proposed that the United Nations could serve as a forum for creating
a new international regulatory framework by setting up a council that would
have a different role from the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, or ECOSOC.
She also said the government's stimulus plans will help to boost the economy,
which is widely feared to be in it's worst recession in six decades. The German
cabinet Wednesday provisionally approved an additional EUR50 billion stimulus
program for 2009-2010, which comes after a EUR31 billion package adopted in
November. These combined measures worth around EUR80 billion amount to 1.5% of
gross domestic product.