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Kiev wants European companies to join Ukraine’s gas transport network — PM

Ukraine last autumn adopted a law allowing foreign investors to modernize the country’s Soviet-era gas transportation network
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk ITAR-TASS/EPA/FILIP SINGER
Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
© ITAR-TASS/EPA/FILIP SINGER

KIEV, April 27. /TASS/. Ukraine wants to see "European partners and friends among shareholders" of the domestic gas transportation system, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Monday.

The participation of EU representatives in the equity capital of the gas transportation system "will create a new qualitative energy policy in Europe," and deny a possibility for monopolies to dictate their terms on the gas market, Yatsenyuk said at the Ukraine-EU summit in Kiev.

Energy policy should be a key area of cooperation between Kiev and Brussels, Yatsenyuk said.

Ukraine last autumn adopted a law allowing foreign investors to modernize the country’s Soviet-era gas transportation network.

The law stipulates that the country’s gas transportation system and underground gas storage facilities will remain in state ownership. At the same time, the law allows their transfer to specially established companies for management. The Ukrainian government will get a controlling stake in these management companies while other investors controlled by residents from the United States, the European Union or the European Energy Community are allowed to buy the remaining shares.

This possibility, however, is not stipulated for Russian companies.