BRUSSELS, Sept. 24 - Ukraine's entry in Energy Community, a pact that ensures countries share the same legal framework for energy investments, will enhance Europe's security of gas supply, the European Commission said Friday.

"This is a major step both for the Energy Community and Ukraine,” Marlene Holzner, spokeswoman for Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, said, quoted by Dow Jones Newswires. "It will enhance security of supply."

The European Commission now expects Ukraine to ratify the pact in the next few months, so it can become a full member by early next year, Holzner said.

The pact ensures member countries share the same legal framework to enforce transparency in investments, open access to the markets, and limit abuse of dominant market positions.

Holzner also said that now Ukraine's national energy company Naftogaz has to separate its production business from the transmission activities, in line with European and Energy Community rules.

"Ukraine has to split the two," she said.

Ukraine’s Energy and Fuel Minister Yuriy Boyko said joining the European Energy Community will give Kiev a chance to persuade Russia to abandon a project of building the South Stream gas pipeline, which is aimed at bypassing Ukraine on the way to Europe.

“We will get the right to vote in the European commissions as partners of European companies, and they are obliged to listen to us, so to speak, because we are now a full member of the Energy Community,” Boyko told BBC radio on Sunday.

Ukraine fears that the South Stream gas pipeline, whose construction has not yet started, is aimed at bypassing Ukraine and would cause massive economic damage to the country.

“The official position of the European Union, the European Commission - and we are grateful for that – that they support Nabucco project, while the South Stream is not a strategic initiative for them.”

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said earlier this month that Russia will build the South Stream gas pipeline no matter what Ukraine does.

"It's not even an issue. We aren't bargaining at all," Shmatko said.

"I believe that our Ukrainian colleagues will have to get used to living in a competitive environment, in permanent market conditions," he said.

"The shareholders have already made the decision. I don't think there will be any problems," he said. "We know about the arguments made by critics who tell us that the project is too expensive, that European consumers don't need the gas. We are confident that it is in Europe's interest to as quickly as possible facilitate the swiftest implementation of the project," Shmatko said.

South Stream, which is supposed to cross under the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria and onward to Italy and Austria, is expected to have capacity to ship 63 billion cubic meters a year.

Intergovernmental agreements on construction of the onshore segment of the pipeline have been signed with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, and Austria. (nr/ez)