France and Germany tell Russians to fulfil gas contracts

(PARIS) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russia on Thursday to honour contracts to deliver gas to Europe despite its dispute with Ukraine.

Homes, schools and factories in about a dozen central European countries have been forced to cut back on heating in the bitter winter cold as a price dispute between Ukraine and Russia went into its second week.

"The Russians must respect their contractual obligations to the Europeans," Sarkozy told a joint news conference with Merkel in Paris.

Sarkozy called on Russia and Ukraine to "faithfully take the path of negotiation to reach agreement", adding that France and Germany saw eye-to-eye on the issue.

Merkel said she was in complete agreement with Sarkozy and that Russia should fulfil its committments, adding that Germany was ready to send experts to monitor gas flows in Ukraine if that would help resolve the crisis.

Officials from Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom and its Ukrainian vis-a-vis Naftogaz were in Brussels for talks on the dispute as European countries tried to cope with a drop in gas supplies.

Gazprom cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine on January 1 after it failed to reach agreement with Naftogaz on payment of arrears for Russian gas already used by Ukraine and on prices for supply in 2009.

Sarkozy also reminded Ukraine that "Europe has done much" for Ukrainians by opening the door to closer cooperation through a partnership agreement.

French officials have said they do not expect French households and factories to suffer from the gas dispute as more than three-quarters of the country's gas is supplied by Norway, the Netherlands and Algeria.

But the government has warned the dispute cannot be allowed to continue.

Slovakia and Romania have declared states of energy emergency, Bulgaria has ordered gas rationing for industry and Hungary and Croatia and Bosnia reported two days running of complete stoppage of Russian gas supply.

Although the European Union is helping to resolve the dispute, Sarkozy noted that the row was a bilateral issue which must be settled through negotiation betweeen Russia and Ukraine.