REPRESENTATIVES of the warring gas companies Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukraine met in Brussels last week, at a special meeting of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) secretariat, in an effort to ensure safer gas supplies to Europe, The Times has learnt.

It was the first time that the ECT has sat down with the Russian and Ukrainian gas companies since January, when a price dispute led Russia to turn off gas supplies to Ukraine. This led to pan-European gas shortages when Ukraine took Russian gas destined for the European Union.

André Mernier, secretary-general of the ECT, an energy treaty that was signed by 52 states in 1991, said: “The Energy Charter provides a basis for resolving potential transit disputes between our member countries, without disrupting gas transit.”

The ECT, however, faces challenges in establishing itself as a credible arbitration forum. Russia, which supplies 25 per cent of the EU’s gas, has yet to ratify the treaty.

José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, will urge President Putin to move forward with ratification when the two meet at an EU-Russia summit this week in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Marc Franco, head of the Commission’s delegation in Russia, said: “The ECT should constitute the framework in which energy relations between the EU and Russia take place.”

Gazprom fears that the charter is biased against Russian interests.

Denis Ignatiev, a spokesman for Gazprom, said: “What did we see in January? Ukraine, which has ratified the charter, disrupted the transit of Russian gas to the EU, and no one from the ECT said anything against them, despite the fact that its actions were illegal according to the charter.”

Under ECT directives, signatory countries that breach the treaty should be liable to large fines.

A source at the ECT said that it was difficult to discover who was to blame for the January stand-off because Gazprom had not provided transparent figures for how much gas it had put into Ukrainian pipelines.

“We still don’t know what exactly happened in January,” the source said.

Despite the war of words, experts believe that Russia is still interested in ratifying the treaty. Jonathan Stern, of the Oxford Energy Institute, who was present at the meeting of Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukraine officials in Brussels, said: “There’s a big upside for Russia in ratifying the treaty. It means that transit countries on which it relies, such as Ukraine and Belarus, would not be able to disrupt supply to Europe without facing serious fines.

Professior Stern added: “Russia is still intensively negotiating on the charter because, effectively, the ECT is the only game in town for regulating international energy transit.”

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Mr Putin’s special representative to the EU, told The Times: “There are certainly positives in the charter for Russia. But it needs to be more equal to both sides.

“It’s not just a charter for protecting the EU’s interests, but also for protecting ours.”