MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/. Slovakia will never approve of Ukraine’s attempts to use issues of gas transit to Europe for political purposes and exert pressure on other countries this way, a senior Slovak lawmaker said.
"We will never approve of the termination of gas transit from Russia to Europe. We, Slovakia, are in a difficult position as we have no access to the sea. We are inside Europe. And this is a problem for Slovakia. We hope that gas transit via Ukraine will resume. And what if it doesn’t? Our Prime Minister [Robert] Fico said our response to Ukraine’s actions may be termination of humanitarian assistance or we may use the so-called right to veto in the European Union. Everything is possible," Marian Kery, head of the Slovak parliamentary committee on international affairs, said in an interview with the Izvestia daily.
Russian gas transit to Europe via Ukraine was fully halted on January 1 due to Kiev’s refusal to extend the agreement. Russia’s gas utility Gazprom said earlier that Kiev’s refusal to extend the deal had deprived it of the technical and legal opportunities for supplying fuel by this route. Gas supplies to Austria, Italy, Moldova, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic were stopped via this route.