“It is very important now to make efforts to prevent such problems in the future. We believe energy security is a very important sphere of interest for Russia and the European Union,” Barroso said.

The European Commission chief also called for “positive interdependence” in relations, saying it is more important now than ever because of the serious global financial crisis.

The Russia-EU relations deteriorated recently due to the brief war between Russia and Georgia last August and Russia’s gas row with Ukraine in January, which left millions of Europeans without heating in the depth of winter for two weeks.