BRATISLAVA, March 18. /TASS/. Slovakia will not support the provisions of the final documents for this Thursday’s EU summit on Ukraine due to the absence of a clause regarding the Druzhba oil pipeline, Prime Minister Robert Fico said.
"We requested that a section concerning the Druzhba pipeline be included in the final documents of the summit on Ukraine. For unknown reasons, this was rejected on principle. I declare that I will not vote for final documents that concern Ukraine," the Prime Minister said during a meeting with members of the European Affairs Committee of the National Council (Slovak Parliament).
"Slovak-Ukrainian relations are not a one-way ticket, where we owe them everything and the other side owes us nothing," Fico added.
He recalled that Bratislava supports Ukraine's EU accession plans, but only if Kiev complies with all the criteria for candidate countries.
"We will reject the European Council's attempts to include provisions in the final documents that would, so to speak, soften the conditions for Ukraine's accession," the Prime Minister noted.
He added that the countries of the Western Balkans are significantly better prepared for EU accession than Ukraine.
Russian oil has not flowed through the Druzhba pipeline to Slovakia and Hungary since January 27.
On February 18, the Slovak government declared an oil crisis in the republic and, in response, suspended electricity and diesel supplies to Ukraine. Bratislava does not rule out introducing new restrictive measures against that country if its approach to the pipeline situation does not change.