Government avoids announcing the date of restarting negotiations with Russia on gas price

The Government failed to confirm, on Wednesday, June 21, the possible restarting of the negotiations with Russia regarding the gas price. The Russian magazine "Kommersant", Ukrainian edition, noted on Tuesday that the Moldovan-Russian negotiations would take place on 22-24 June. Sources from the Government reported that “the visit is being prepared”, not knowing when the Moldovan delegation is to leave for Russia. According to the “Kommersant” magazine, even if the negotiations should have taken place at the beginning of this week, they were postponed due to the visit of the chairman of the Administration Council of the Russian Company “Gazprom”, Alexei Miller, to Turkmenistan and Hungary. The magazine also mentions that the vice-chairman of the Administration Council of "Gazprom", Alexandr Reazanov, has recently made public statements regarding the introduction, for CIS countries, of a unique policy for gas price payment “grounding on market prices, and as basis will serve the tariff available at the border between Germany and Poland, excluding the transport costs”. According to him, this principle is already applied in the Baltic countries; it will be implemented in Moldova starting the second semester of 2006, and in Belarus – starting 2007. In case of Moldova, the “European” price for gas will be of 160 dollars, Reazanov mentioned, quoted by the magazine “Kommersant” in Ukraine.