The Estonian government will send the European Commission a proposal to fine Gazprom
The Estonian government had a meeting on Thursday and decided to invite the European Commission to fine PJSC Gazprom for abusing the monopoly position in the gas market.
“Considering the scale of the violation, Estonia believes that the antimonopoly investigation against Gazprom should be completed in a way that ensures the cessation of abuse of the monopoly position, followed by a fine. According to Estonia, in this case, the taking of obligations by Gazprom is not proportional to the size of the violation, considering that the abuse of its monopoly position caused direct economic damage,” says the letter of the EC prepared by Justice Minister Urmas Reinsalu.
“Estonia believes that Gazprom's obligations are temporary and do not provide a long-term acceptable gas price for consumers. If the EC considers that Gazprom's proposals are sufficient for Central and Eastern Europe to resolve the situation with the gas market’s competition, then, according to Estonia, Gazprom should supplement the proposals to ensure that abuses cannot be made in the future,” the document says.
Gazprom maintains a monopoly position in Estonia, despite the appearance of an LNG terminal in Klaipeda as an alternative supplier. As a result, “the price of gas for Estonia was disproportionately high, especially in contrast to Western European gas exchanges with a sufficient number of sources of replenishment,” Reinsalu said earlier.
The European Commission began investigating Gazprom in 2011 after conducting searches in the offices of ten European company’s subsidiaries.