A war of words between Bratislava and Kyiv stepped up a notch after a mooted meeting with European Union officials on Tuesday to discuss energy security fears was canceled.
Ministers from Ukraine and Slovakia were due to meet in Brussels to discuss the fallout from the end of a deal to transit Russian gas to Europe through pipelines running through Ukraine, which expired on Jan.1., with the European Commission mediating.
Slovakia had wanted to extend the deal and continue to import Moscow’s fuel through Ukraine but its requests were rebuffed, leading to threats from populist Prime Minister Robert Fico to cut much-needed electricity exports to Ukraine and slash support for refugees fleeing Russia’s war.
Just hours before the Brussels-mediated session to find a resolution was supposed to take place, Fico’s government issued a statement alleging that the Ukrainian side had walked out of discussions.
“Due to the fact that the Ukrainian side will not attend … the European Commission has decided to cancel the meeting,” the Slovak government said.
But, speaking to POLITICO, Ukraine’s EU ambassador, Vsevolod Chentsov, insisted that the claims were false and that the meeting had actually been initiated by Kyiv to discuss Fico’s warnings he could choke off delivery of power to the grid.
“Ukraine triggered the early warning mechanism on electricity supplies because of Fico’s threats to stop the supplies, not gas transit talks,” said Chentsov.
According to him, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko had planned to take part in discussions in Brussels, but was forced to stay home “because of the difficult situation in the energy sector.” Instead of taking Kyiv up on the offer of an online meeting, Commission officials suggested it be rescheduled for another date, the ambassador added.
“The Commission has been ready to follow up and discuss the impacts of the end of the transit agreements with all parties concerned,” a spokesperson for the EU’s executive arm told POLITICO. “We continue to stay in close contact.”
In lobbying for an extension of the gas transit deal, both Slovakia and Hungary argued that its termination would cause a major price crisis or a supply shortage. However, according to EU officials, these have so far failed to materialize.
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