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European Commission inquiry into Gazprom won’t lead to fines

There should be no fines or sanctions, the European deputy said

NOVY URENGOI, September 7 (Itar-Tass) —— The situation of the European antimonopoly inquiry into Gazprom will be settled, member of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy Bela Kovacs (Hungary) said on Friday.

He said he always called for negotiations in the settlement of such disputes. There should be no fines or sanctions, the deputy said.

In his opinion, Gazprom will not be fined in the end. The deputy added that was his personal opinion.

Meanwhile, the European External Action Service’s Sven-Olof Carlsson said the anti-monopoly inquiry would not affect the Russia-EU partnership. He said he had no doubts that the partnership would be preserved. Certain nuances and disputable issues exist, but that is quite normal, he said. Carlsson did not say how long the inquiry might take. There are no deadlines, but the procedure may take quite long, he said.

A delegation of the European Parliament and some other EU departments is making a working trip to Russia by the invitation of the State Duma. The European deputies have met with Russian colleagues and representatives of Gazprom and visited the gas capital of Russia, Novy Urengoi, and a circumpolar gas deposit in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district.

The European Commission announced on September 4 that it would start an anti-dumping inquiry into Gazprom.

The European Commission initiated the formal procedure to see whether the Russian gas supplier, Gazprom, was breaching European competition norms, particularly in Eastern and Central European countries – Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary.

It will scrutinize the situation in the countries that import from two-thirds to the whole of their gas from Gazprom. European norms stipulate a fine of up to 10% of the company annual turnover – more than 10 billion euros in the case of Gazrpom- for violations of the sort.

At the same time, the European Commission said it did not mean to wage a trade war on Russia over gas delivery terms. This is a regular verification of a foreign company’s compliance with European competition norms, a European Commission representative said. The European Commission will make a through and unbiased analysis. The start of the formal procedure does not mean the European Commission deems Gazprom guilty of the violations, he noted.

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