EU, Ukraine, Russia to hold gas talks next week: EU

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union will hold fresh talks with Russia and Ukraine next week to settle their ongoing dispute over gas deliveries, an EU official said on Friday.

"The next trilateral meeting on gas will take place on the 26th of September in Berlin," a spokeswoman for EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told AFP.

Europe gets more than 30 percent of its gas from Russia, with half of that transiting through Ukraine, but in June Moscow cut off supplies intended for Kiev amid a bitter price dispute.

For now, gas is continuing to flow as normal through Ukraine into the EU, but Russia has warned there was a high risk of disruption of deliveries to Europe this winter as international tensions remain high over the Ukraine crisis.

Russia cut supplies in 2006 and 2009, causing havoc in Europe during the winter months, especially in former Soviet era states which remain heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies to cover their energy needs.

Several rounds of EU-brokered gas talks have failed to produce a solution thus far, against a backdrop of Brussels imposing tougher economic sanctions against Russia as the Ukraine crisis has deepened.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said this week Ukraine has a $5.3 billion (4.1 billion euro) gas debt but that Moscow was not demanding repayment "all in one go".

Additionally, Russia was prepared to offer Ukraine a new lower price of $385 per 1,000 cubic metres, down from the $485 it had previously insisted upon.