Prodi Promises to Plug In Ukraine

President of the European Commission Romano Prodi has paid an official visit to Kyiv. The Eurocommission president’s visit was only discussed within the context of a joint project by Russia’s Gazprom and four West European corporations to build a new natural gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine. Moreover, Mr. Prodi’s visit became known during the EU-Russia summit, where the new pipeline construction was high on the agenda. Precisely at that time Mr. Prodi said that when in Kyiv he would carefully look into Ukraine’s unsanctioned pilferage of gas, about which the Russian president so much complained during his stay in Paris. In this connection, Eurocommission sources said on the eve of Mr. Prodi’s visit to Kyiv that the European Union would in no case side with Ukraine in its relations with the former Soviet states. Of course, Mr. Prodi himself never made such statements, certainly not in the presence of the press.

President Leonid Kuchma is confident the supply of Russian gas has only been caused by the fuel crisis in Western Europe. Mr. Kuchma also said that in a recent telephone call after the Paris EU-Russia summit Vladimir Putin had assured him the new pipeline project would by no means reduce the supplies of gas to Western Europe across Ukraine. Moreover, according to Mr. Kuchma, Mr. Putin stressed that “we will consider together the possibility of increasing the pumping of gas to Europe across our territory.” Mr. Kuchma reminded us again that we are only transporting 120 billion cubic meters of gas instead of the quite feasible 170-190 billion cu. m. Mr. Prodi also backed up the more adequate use of the existing transporting facilities, saying that “a straight gas pipeline is always shorter than a curved one, and in addition it is more profitable to utilize projects already invested in than to invest in new ones.”

So the pipeline bypass problem (if it ever existed at all from the Ukrainian leadership’s perspective) has been solved at first glance quite painlessly and amicably. The very issue of the new pipeline’s construction seems to have been concocted by journalists. Poland also can now feel relieved after Mr. Prodi’s visit to Kyiv to begin negotiations with Moscow with a clear conscience. Romano Prodi promised to promote Ukraine’s participation in the new pipeline construction, noting that, although the new project is being implemented only by private companies and the EU has no right to bar them from this, Ukraine will become a full-fledged party to the talks on this “critical question.”

The other important and no less critical question discussed by Messrs. Prodi and Kuchma is the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) closure. The President of Ukraine confirmed that the CNPP would be shut down on December 15. Mr. Prodi on his part said that the EU would meet all the obligations it has assumed in this respect. The European Commission head again failed to name concrete figures or dates, only announcing the allocation of 25 million euros to make up for the fuel shortage to be caused by the CNPP shutdown (it is noteworthy that, as Verkhovna Rada Vice Speaker Viktor Medvedchuk said, Mr. Prodi named the figure of EUR 24 million, while meeting the Ukrainian deputies). The EU leadership will hold a special session to this effect on November 16, and Ukraine will get the money only next April. Loans for the completion of two reactors at the Khmelnytsky and Rivne nuclear power plants seem to remain an equation with many unknowns. According to Mr. Prodi, the EBRD is actively involved in this process, so this problem will “be solved successfully.” Mr. Kuchma also disclosed that the problem of loans for the two reactors would be settled immediately after the IMF resumed the EFF program. But there still are 23 EBRD shareholding countries whose opinions on the completion of reactors in Ukraine have been split. Should the funds be not forthcoming, the Chornobyl NPP will be closed in any case, President Kuchma stressed.

This is how Romano Prodi completed the two days of his first official visit. Mr. Kuchma called the guest “a great friend of this country” during whose visit we “witnessed EU- Ukraine relations touch a new level, the level of concrete deeds rather than words and intent.”