BRUGES, April 24. /ITAR-TASS/. A ministerial meeting of Russian, EU and Ukrainian representatives regarding the problem of Ukraine’s payments for the natural gas it gets from Russia is very likely to be held in Brussels at the beginning of next week, Dominique Ristori, the European Commission’s Director General for Energy told Russian reporters Thursday.

He said there is an agreement and willingness to hold the meeting as early as possible and these important talks will be held soon.

The European Commissioner for Energy, Gunter Oettinger, has already sent out the EU’s proposals and has received an answer from the Russian Energy Minister, Alexander Novak, Ristori said, adding that the main thing now is to come to terms on the date of the conference very quickly.

Earlier, the press service confirmed the conceptual readiness of the European Commission to hold multilateral talks over the gas issue at the political level.

As ITAR-TASS reported earlier, the parliament-appointed Minister of Energy and Coalmining Yuriy Prodan stated on Wednesday that April 24, talks on the gas issue with participation of Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia and the European Commission might take place in Bratislava. He said that the relevant initiative was earlier proposed by the Russian side.

“There is a proposal from the Russian side and from the European Commission to hold a four-party or three-party meeting. Today, the issue of the three ministers’ meeting in Bratislava is considered, — of the Slovakian, Russian ministers and me, as well as the European commissioner,” Yuriy Prodan informed.