Gazprom is one of the world’s largest suppliers of natural gas and provides the gas needs of a quarter of Europe. The European Commission has been investigating the supply giant since 2012 for suspected the anti-completive practices of overcharging customers and blocking rival supply companies. The minister of energy stated that Gazprom’s supplying to Lietuvos Dujos at such inflated prices, higher than Latvia, Estonia and Germany were being charged, was harmful to Lithuania’s consumers, the economy and Leituvos Dujos as a company.

A previous case filed by the Lithuanian government against Gazprom before the international arbitration court in Stockholm, is demanding compensation of 5 billion Lithuanian litas ($2 billion) for previous pricing. The new arbitration initiative will hopefully speed up talks with Gazprom to finally achieve a discount. Gazprom stated that Leituvos Dujos agreed to pay prices based on a formula that is linked to oil pricing and that it would not change its pricing practices in Eastern Europe in spite of regulatory pressure. The current sale agreement is in place until the end of 2015. The Gazprom said in September it could reduce prices if Lithuania signed a “comprehensive agreement” and withdrew the existing claim from the Stockholm court. Lithuania plans to erect a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at end of 2014, and its top power utility Lietuvos Energija expects to start importing LNG in 2015.

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The Finance Ministry’s Deputy State Secretary, Alexander Antonov on EU funds matters, says, “It is not surprising that we are in the top 3 of the best acquirers, because from the start of the EU funds period, Latvia has steadily kept leading positions among the top acquirers”.

Latvia has concluded agreements with the EU funded project implementers for ~ 2.5 billion lats or 80.5% of the total allocation until September 30, while nearly 1.2 billion lats or 37% of the total EU fund allocation for 2007 – 2013 period have been paid to project implementers. Assessing the acquisition in terms of the paid funding to project implementers; Estonia ranks in the first place, followed by Lithuania, with Latvia taking the third place. While, in terms of the concluded agreements, the first place is taken by Cyprus, the second – by Estonia, while the third place – by Latvia.

The EU budget revenues mainly consist of member states’ contributions or the EU’s own resources. The proposal by the European Commission (EC) stipulates introduction of new own resources in form of new taxes, namely, the implementation of the EU value added tax (VAT) and financial transactions tax.

Latvia has negative standpoint regarding these new taxes. Given the current financial and economic conditions and the additional tax burden already imposed on the country’s residents, Latvia cannot support the adoption of new taxes on the EU level, indicates the Finance Ministry.

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Businesses need to survive the crisis.

The IMF’s head of Emerging Europe division Bas Bakker said, “It’s important to prevent the re-emergence of credit booms.”

So where do we go from here as what has been learnt to ensure credit boom does not occur again many leading companies are cautious as it is unknown what will happen in the year to come.

Areas considered are; Bank Supervision, foreign currency loans and lessens government expenditure throughout safer times.

But are the EU (European Commission) laws been taken notice and followed as this should help to prevent any out of control scenario effecting the economy to instability.

The ministers of the G-20 have agreed on working towards changes allowing a shift for country appearance and representation at the IMF towards bigger, active emerging market and developing countries.

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