Outcome of EU-Russia-Ukraine trilateral gas talks in Vienna

Vienna, 30 June 2015

Today’s trilateral gas talks in Vienna finished after meetings between the European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, Russian energy minister Alexander Novak, Ukrainian energy minister Vladimir Demchyshyn and Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev.

”Today’s trilateral consultation has again shown that all parties agree on the principles needed to ensure stable and smooth gas deliveries to Ukraine and transit to the EU. The translation of these principles into a jointly agreed final framework require further work.

As the meeting has shown today, the parties are still far apart. We have agreed that the Commission will put forward ideas to prepare next steps so that the next consultation could take place. We will use the summer to start preparing the next winter season", Vice-President Šefčovič said in Vienna.

The European Commission acts as a mediator in the latest round of trilateral talks that started in March 2015. The objective is to trilaterally agree on a follow-up agreement to the  current Winter Package, which ended on 30 March 2015 and was partially extended by the two parties until 30 June 2015. The Commission has been consolidating with the Russian and Ukrainian sides a draft protocol following several meetings at expert level in order to find a compromise between Russia and Ukraine.

European Commission