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Russia/EU: Charges against Gazprom stem from politics says ambassador

By  |  April 27, 2015

Charges against Russian energy company Gazprom stem from Lithuania’s government, not energy companies, a Russian envoy told a European news outlet.

The European Commission last week said it suspected Gazprom was violating antitrust rules by abusing its position in the Central and Eastern European markets. The European commissioner in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, said Gazprom was preventing gas from flowing from “certain Central Eastern European countries” and thereby prohibiting competition.

Russian Ambassador to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov told European news service EurActiv the charges stem from the Lithuanian government.

“What puzzled me from the beginning was that the whole case was initiated not by some economic entities, not by EU-based energy companies which could have theoretically complained about those contracts, but by the government of a member state,” he was quoted as saying in an interview published Monday.

 

Full Content: The Financial Times

 

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