Merkel welcomes EU energy summit with Putin

Jun 20, 2006, 10:07 GMT

Berlin - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday welcomed plans to discuss energy security issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a European Union summit this October in Finland.

Finland takes over the rotating EU presidency from July 1 and Finnish President Tarja Halonen last week announced that Putin would attend the October 20 summit to be held at Lahti, near Helsinki.

'It's very good that Finland has invited President Putin to the EU to discuss energy,' said Merkel at a news briefing with Halonen, adding that securing Europe's energy supplies would be a top theme for the six-month Finnish EU presidency.

Merkel underlined that Germany wanted 'a strategic partnership' with Russia but that Berlin would continue to 'speak out openly' on crucial issues.

This is an echo of Merkel's visit to Moscow last January where she raised sensitive themes such as human rights in Chechnya. In contrast, former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had a close friendship with President Putin and once termed the Russian leader a 'flawless democrat.'

Russia plans to make energy security a top issue at the Group of Eight (G8) summit of industrial nations it hosts July 15 to 17 in St. Petersburg.

But Moscow's cut-off of natural gas to Ukraine in January, due to a pricing dispute, has fuelled worries over Russian reliability as an energy supplier. Deliveries of gas to western Europe were also impacted by the cuts.

Despite these concerns, Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom and German energy giants BASF and E.ON AG have begun work on a Baltic Sea gas pipeline that will bring natural gas straight from Russia to Germany without crossing any other countries.

Gazprom will hold a 51 per cent majority in the Baltic Sea North European Gas Pipeline.

Chancellor Merkel, who has described the venture as private business decision, says she supports the pipeline which has been strongly criticized by EU members Poland and Lithuania because it bypasses their territories.