Moldova will pay more than twice as much for Russian gas from April. European companies will apparently continue to be able to pay their bills for Russian gas in euros.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has the German chancellor Olaf Scholz According to information from Berlin, European companies can continue to pay their bills for Russian gas in euros. In a telephone call on Wednesday, Putin said that gas deliveries would have to be paid for in rubles from April 1, explained government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. “At the same time, he emphasized in the conversation that nothing would change for the European contractual partners.”
Payments should therefore continue to be made exclusively in euros to the Gazprom-Bank to be transferred, which is not affected by sanctions. “The bank then converts the money into rubles,” Hebestreit quoted the Russian head of state as saying. Putin declared last week that in future only rubles would be accepted as payment for gas deliveries to “unfriendly” countries. This includes all EU countries. The G7 countries, among others, rejected the announcement as “unacceptable” and called on their companies not to comply with the Russian demand.
Scholz did not agree to the procedure now explained by Putin, Hebestreit explained. The Chancellor “only asked for written information in order to understand the procedure more precisely”. The G7 agreement continues to apply: “Energy deliveries are paid exclusively in euros or dollars. As stipulated in the contracts.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had previously announced that the changeover to the payment system would only take place gradually. On Thursday, the Russian government, the country’s central bank, which is subject to Western sanctions, and the Russian energy giant Gazprom want to present their plans for implementing the measure.
Moldova will pay twice as much from April
According to Moldova, starting April 1, it will pay Russia’s Gazprom between $1,160 and $1,170 per thousand cubic meters for natural gas. This is the provisional price, said the boss of the energy company Moldovagaz, Wadim Ceban. In March, the state-owned company paid $547.
Moldova has had a dispute with the government in Moscow over gas prices in the past. Last year, Gazprom threatened to stop deliveries if the demands were not met. Like Ukraine and Georgia, Moldova is an ex-Soviet republic where separatists, with the support of Moscow, want to break away from the state. In the case of Moldova, which lies between Romania and Ukraine but does not share a border with Russia, the breakaway region of Transnistria is at stake.
(APA/AFP/Archyde.com)
