TOMSK, April 27 (RIA Novosti) - President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that economic cooperation with the West, including in the energy sector, should be carried out on equal terms.
Putin said current calls in Britain for a new law to prevent a possible Gazprom buyout of its largest gas-distribution company, Centrica, show Russian companies are discriminated against on global markets.
"We constantly hear about some threat of dependence on Russia and that Russian companies should have limited access to the energy market," Putin told a news conference in the West Siberian oil city of Tomsk, where he is meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"When [people] come to us, it is called investment and globalization, but when we plan to enter [other markets], it is already referred to as expansion," he said. "We must agree on common rules of the game."
Putin said that Russia had no other option in such circumstances but look for other markets. But he praised British officials who said a new law preventing Gazprom taking over Centrica would be unacceptable and promised support for all investors.
"Such a partnership approach will help resolve any problem, even the most complex," he said.
Merkel said the European Union was discussing the issue, but ruled out the possibility of any protectionist trends.
Her statement came following harsh criticism of her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, for accepting a high position in a Russian-German joint venture to build the North European Gas Pipeline. The German parliament is investigating state credit guarantees given to the project by the government of Schroeder, who was on friendly terms with Putin.
Merkel also said that Berlin had repeatedly said economic cooperation with Germany was a question of economic development.
Putin said Merkel and he agreed that energy cooperation between Russia and Europe had been ongoing for decades.
"Even during the Cold War, during confrontation between two regimes that were balancing on the edge of a nuclear world war, Russia supplied all its European partners exactly on time in accordance with commercial contracts," Putin said, before asking rhetorically what the point was in trying to artificially increase fears of dependence on Russia now that global dynamics have changed dramatically.
