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Ukraine is not worried about Slovak threats to cut power supplies to Kyiv over its refusal to prolong a gas deal with Russia, the country’s top energy official said, with just hours to go until the controversial pact expires.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico this week warned he could take “reciprocal measures” including stopping electricity exports to Ukraine in the depths of winter after Kyiv ruled out extending the 2019 agreement, which allows gas to flow through the country into Central Europe.
“I don’t think that they would do this,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko told POLITICO in an interview, arguing the move would be “absolutely contrary” to EU rules. Kyiv has also appealed to the European Commission, the EU’s executive, to begin a formal consultation on the issue, he said.
Meanwhile, Kyiv could replace the lost power with imports from Romania and Poland, Galushchenko said. Warsaw has already offered its support in case of a cutoff.
If “the goal [is] to make Ukraine [in] pain,” he said, “it doesn’t work in this situation.”
Slovakia and Hungary, led by the Russia-friendly Fico and Viktor Orbán, have been for months trying to convince Kyiv to renew the gas deal, which expires on Tuesday night.
Although the gas supplies transiting Ukraine account for around 5 percent of the EU’s total imports, the two countries have argued an end to the deal would threaten their security of supply and asked Brussels to support their efforts to prolong it — calls the Commission has repeatedly rebuffed.
Fico met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a surprise visit over the Christmas holidays to discuss gas supplies, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to charge the Slovakian leader with weakening Europe. Central European firms have also urged the gas deal to be extended.
Still, experts have argued there is little risk that Slovakia would face energy shortages if the deal ends as expected, with the country more concerned with retaining the revenues it earns from transporting and reselling the Russian supplies. A senior Ukrainian official last week estimated that Slovakia earns around half a billion dollars a year from access to the discounted gas.
According to Galushchenko, any power cutoff would only deal a further financial blow to Bratislava.
“We are talking not about some grant of electricity or supply for free — we are talking about the electricity which we pay for,” he said, arguing Slovakia stands to lose “hundreds of millions of dollars” per year from stopping exports.
It would also lose access to potentially cheap Ukrainian electricity supplies in future, he added.
A Commission spokesperson said the “EU is prepared” for an end to the Russian gas deal on Tuesday, after working for “more than a year” to “ensur[e] that alternative supplies are available.”
Slovakia’s Economy Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment by POLITICO.
