Moscow - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told told the EU bloc’s leaders on Thursday that the EU’s executive body could give Ukraine a maximum $1 billion ( 790 million euros) in the near term out of its budget to help Kyiv pay its gas bills, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
The money could be made available to Ukraine quickly in order to help Kyiv settle a gas bill to Russia that would allow Ukraine to start receiving gas from Russian energy company OAO Gazprom again, according to several officials briefed on discussions.
In the early hours of Oct. 24, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters that Ukraine would need some kind of bridge loan to pay its gas bill but that the issue wasn’t resolved yet.
During the recent meeting on gas issues in the Russia-Ukraine-European Commission format the sides agreed that Ukraine will pay $3.1 billion of gas debt to Gazprom by the end of the year and buy at least 5 billion cubic meters of gas. The sides failed to settle the schedule of paying the debt. Kyiv said that the country does not have money to pay for new gas supplies.
Ukraine asked additional 2 billion euros from the EU to cover the cash gap in the budget. EU officials have said Brussels is unlikely to agree a fresh loan of that size and have said that any further loans will remain strictly tied to reforms in Ukraine, according to he Wall Street Journal.
The new tripartite talks between Ukraine, Russia and the EU will take place in Brussels on Oct. 29.
