KIEV, March 4 - The European Union is prepared to play a role in the negotiations over gas contracts between Ukraine and Russia, but for that to happen there needs to be an invitation, European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said.

"We have proposed a scheme according to which the negotiations will become trilateral, and the European Union will join them. And now the thing is with your minister. If he thinks it possible, then he will send us an invitation. No such invitation has come yet," Oettinger said in a Kommersant-Ukraine interview published on Monday.