Russia and EU agree on energy supply alert system

RUSSIA AND the EU agreed yesterday to create an alert system to warn of impending energy supply problems, amid mounting fears of a repeat of January’s gas crisis.

The deal signed in Moscow obliges Russia and the EU to notify each other of possible disruption to gas, oil or electricity supplies, and to work together to restore proper fuel flows. The early-warning system is intended to help prevent a repeat of last winter’s debacle, when Russia cut the gas supply to Ukraine for failing to pay its bills, and then turned off gas flow to the EU after accusing Kiev of siphoning off the fuel as it passed through its pipelines.

“An energy crisis like the one the EU suffered in January is harmful for supply, transit and consuming countries,” said European energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs. “We need to do everything necessary to make sure that such a situation never happens again.”

The crisis left millions of central Europeans without heat and light in midwinter and forced hundreds of factories to reduce or halt production. More than a dozen EU member states were affected by the stoppage, which increased doubts about Moscow’s reliability as an energy supplier and strengthened calls for the EU to diversify its fuel imports away from Russia.

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has warned that his country will stop pumping gas to Ukraine again this winter if it fails to pay its gas bills, and will once more halt supplies to the EU if Kiev takes gas from export pipelines to feed domestic demand.

Moscow has asked Brussels to help Kiev pay for its fuel – so far to no avail – as Ukraine battles a deep recession and tries to keep its spending in line with the terms of an emergency loan deal with the International Monetary Fund.

Payment of the latest tranche of the loan has been postponed amid disagreement between Ukraine’s president and prime minister over how the money should be used. They, and a pro-Russian former premier, will contest a presidential election in January that could be strongly influenced by an energy crisis and its political fallout.

Energy security is likely to feature heavily in tomorrow’s EU-Russia summit in Sweden. Most EU states say they have more gas in storage facilities than last year, but are still keen to avoid any disruption to supply.