The European Parliament, which hosted the 16th Ukraine-European Union summit Monday in Brussels, reassured Kiev of its support to help modernize Ukraine's gas transit network, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday, according to Xinhua.
"It is safe to say that the interaction with the European Union on the issue of gas transit system modernization become practical," the ministry's spokesman Yevgen Perebiynis told reporters.
The Pomary-Urengoi-Uzhgorod section of the Ukraine gas network will start being upgraded soon after the first tranche of an EU loan is allocated, Perebiynis said.
The EU at Monday's summit agreed to loan Ukraine 610 million euros (around 811 million U.S. dollars) in macro-financial assistance.
Ukraine's gas transport network is Europe's second largest, carrying one-fifth of the gas consumed by the European Union. The network pumps 142.5 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe each year.
