On October 21st, the German Economic News headlined (as translated), “Merkel: EU Taxpayers Should Finance Debt of Ukraine,” and reported that, “Angela Merkel visited [Slovakia’s Finance Minister] Robert Fico on Monday [in the Slovak capital of Bratislavia]. Both leaders demand that Kiev should take more responsibility,” and not push the EU to pay Ukraine’s past-due gas bills from Russia’s Gazprom.
Ukraine’s leader, Petro Poroshenko, was “demanding” that the EU bail out Ukraine, which is months behind on its gas bill from Gazprom, and which furthermore has been getting Slovakia to reverse flow of Russia’s gas, in order to meet Kiev’s own heating-needs.
“Ukraine and Russia negotiate Tuesday morning in Brussels about the dispute over gas supplies,” to Europe, through Ukraine’s pipelines from Russia.
“Russia demands that Ukraine pay its past-due gas bill of $4.5 billion, but doubts Kiev’s solvency.”
Merkel proposes that the EU provide a bridge-loan to help Ukraine get through the winter. She says, “It could not be expected that the EU will take over Ukraine’s gas debt to Russia. Fico’s anger is understandable.”
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