““Currently, there is no threat of reducing or limiting the volume of electricity imports. In the first days of January, Ukraine continues to receive electricity, including from Slovakia, without restrictions””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“The Slovak power grid is part of the unified network. That is, even if they closed their “entrances” to Ukraine for repairs, for some short period, then, according to the rules of the unified market, the corresponding amount of electricity will be proportionally distributed among other electricity supplier countries. But such a decision should not be made by Slovak operators, but by the unified energy grid itself. And the European Commission is keeping a close eye on this,” Shmyhal noted.
According to him, “currently there is no threat of reducing or limiting the volume of electricity imports. In the first days of January, Ukraine continues to receive electricity, including from Slovakia, without restrictions.”
The Prime Minister also emphasized that “Ukraine is a full member of the European Energy Network (ENTSO-E) and the Energy Community of the European Union. And as soon as the Prime Minister of Slovakia announced the threat of stopping the import of electricity to Ukraine, the Ministry of Energy addressed these institutions and the European Commission with a corresponding statement.”
“There was a reaction, we have answers,” Shmyhal noted.
Previously, Fitso demanded that Ukraine restore the transit of Russian gas through its territory and offered options on how to do it technically, while formally maintaining the suspension introduced by Kyiv.
“Subsidiary (newly created Slovak – ed.) would buy gas at the Ukrainian-Russian border, and then transit Ukraine would already have Slovak gas, not Russian or any other. Models of cooperation have been prepared,” Fizo said in Brussels, Rado Svoboda correspondent reports.
The Prime Minister of Slovakia accused Volodymyr Zelensky of “political whims”, which, according to Fico, became the reason for the transit stop. The head of the Slovak government repeated that Bratislava will lose 500 million euros in fees for the transit of non-Russian gas and declared “catastrophic consequences for the entire EU.”
Ukraine stopped the transportation of Russian natural gas through its territory on January 1 at 07:00 “in the interests of national security”.
The main European importers of Russian gas, Slovakia and Austria, have already secured alternative supply routes, although Fico said there would be “dramatic consequences” for the entire European Union, demanding the resumption of transit. The Slovak prime minister did not rule out retaliatory measures.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, in his turn assumed that Robert Fitso, who was received by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, “received an order to open a second energy front against Ukraine.”