Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos MitsotakisATHENS, Mar 25 Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that EU summit came to an agreement on energy. «The long EU summit has just ended, a rather difficult discussion was today on the big problem of energy. It ended, fortunately, successfully, with a general agreement on the text,» Mitsotakis said at a press conference in Brussels following the NATO and EU summits. His speech is broadcast on the Greek Public Television ERT.Macron did not agree with Russia's demand to pay for gas in rubles «There were quite difficult discussions on energy issues. We came to the European Council without a common opinion on how we should respond to this phenomenon — the explosive growth in natural gas prices. But we managed to reach an agreement. We «We called on the European Commission to study gas prices, there is mutual understanding and understanding of how the gas market works, how speculation is going on. We demanded that the President of the European Commission talk with all the leading market players and propose solutions as soon as possible,» Mitsotakis said. the upper limit of gas prices. Mitsotakis specified that the impact of gas on the price of electricity was discussed. «The European Commission has promised that by May it will submit proposals on the purchase of electricity in Europe and on how to correct distortions in the extremely high price of natural gas,» he said. According to him, no one expected that the price of gas would be at such a level. Mitsotakis added that «with great satisfaction» the messages of the EC chairman were listened to that a long-term gas supply by the United States and LNG producers was being discussed. The prime minister also said that the sanctions adopted against Russia «were extremely tough and are already having consequences for the Russian economy.» But it is important that the sanctions are implemented by everyone, including all NATO members, he stressed. Western countries have introduced new anti-Russian sanctions, including against Russian banks and enterprises, because of Ukraine. A number of companies announced their withdrawal from the Russian market and the closure of production facilities in the Russian Federation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that Western companies that refuse to work with Russia did so under enormous pressure, but Russia will solve all the problems with the economy that the West creates for it.
The German Finance Ministry opposed the refusal of gas contracts with Russia. Later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the policy of containing and weakening Russia is a long-term strategy for the West, and sanctions have dealt a serious blow to the entire global economy. According to him, the main goal of the West is to worsen the lives of millions of people. Putin also said that the United States and the European Union had effectively defaulted on their obligations to Russia, freezing its foreign exchange reserves. He added that the current events draw a line under the global dominance of the West in both politics and the economy. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the Russian president stressed.
