The European Commission demanded today that Russian gas supplies to Europe resume immediately now that details of a mission to monitor the flow through Ukrainian pipelines have been agreed.
'There is now agreement on the details of the monitoring mission,' a commission statement said. 'It is now imperative that the gas start to flow to the European Union without any further delay,' it added.
The EU's executive arm said commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso had spoken overnight with Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko, while Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs phoned his Russian counterparts.
Russia cut supplies for Ukraine's domestic market on January 1 due to a payments dispute, and then on Wednesday shut off gas transiting through the former Soviet state to Europe, hitting around a dozen nations at a moment of freezing mid-winter temperatures.
Moscow accused Ukraine of stealing gas intended for Europe, a charge Ukraine has denied.
Russia is the world's biggest natural gas producer and provides about one-quarter of the gas used in the European Union, or about 40% of the gas the bloc imports. About 80% of those imports pass though Ukraine.
Ukraine agreed to allow the monitors yesterday and 10 to 12, drawn from the European gas industry and the European Commission, were due on the ground today.
The monitors, working at about eight stations, are to check how much gas is being piped from Russia to Ukraine, the main transit route for Russian gas to Europe.
Russia had held up agreement on the monitors because it wanted Russian personnel to be among them, but the differences were overcome overnight, the Czech EU presidency said. But Moscow has yet to confirm that an agreement was reached.
In Bulgaria the government begun rationing gas supplies to industries and temperatures in buildings plummeted. 75 schools across the country closed until today for lack of adequate heating. Serbia has switched 90% of its heating plants to crude oil after Russian gas deliveries were completely halted at midnight on Tuesday.
And in the snow-blanketed Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, about 72,000 households remained without heating for a fourth day today due to a total halt in Russian gas supplies.
