Moscow - The European Commission on Wednesday urged Russia and Belarus to seek an amicable solution to their latest dispute over energy supplies after Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said it would reduce gas supplies to its neighbour by 45 per cent from Friday. "We take this development very seriously," commission spokesman Martin Selmayr told reporters.
Both sides should resolve their dispute without delay and create conditions for the timely resumption of deliveries, he said.
If needed the commission could convene a meeting of a European Union "gas coordination group" to study implications of the row on energy supplies to the 27-nation bloc, said Selmayr.
Gazprom has accused the Belarus gas company Beltransgas of having paid for about half of its imports of Russian natural gas in the first six months of 2007.
About one fifth of Russian gas exports to Europe transit Belarus.
According to Gazprom, Western customers had been told about the planned reduction of supplies.
Russia and Belarus previously clashed over energy supplies at the beginning of 2007.
While a complete stoppage of gas supplies to Belarus was avoided, Russia reduced its supplies of oil for several days - a decision which also affected the transit pipeline into the EU.
The cause of the conflict is Moscow's attempt to raise step by step the strongly subsidized energy prices for Belarus to an international level.
A doubling of gas prices had caused Minsk to seriously fall behind on its payments in recent months.
