Gas crisis continues, part 4

Last night at the play with all the teachers, I found out that the principal is taking some heat (no pun intended) for following the mayor's office and dismissing school for the week. Apparently, Hungary's head of Education said not to cancel schools due to the gas crisis, but in a few of the counties, where the mayors are of the opposite political party, the mayors went ahead and cancelled school anyway. Since this school is partially funded by the Catholic church, the principal has in the past been able to not follow the direction of the government and follow the direction of the church. Many people feel he should have done it this time, and he has been getting a lot of pressure. All of these days must be made up one way or another.

I also found out that the smaller of the two other high schools told their students school may only be out until Wednesday and the students might be contacted to return to school this week, while the larger school told their students they must check the school internet site and will be responsible for attending if school reconvenes early. We did neither - just told the kids no school for the whole week - see ya later!

So, today I got an email and then a phone call telling me our school will reconvene on Thursday! Should be interesting to see what the attendance is like, since these kids come from all over the region.

Ok, so what's happening with the gas? Over the last few days, this is what has happened:
-Agreement has been reached, EU monitors will travel to the sites and make sure the gas flows.
-Oops, Russia has not received a copy of the agreement - no gas until they get an official copy.
-Got the copy - no good, null and void, 'cause the Ukraine added clauses about the price of their gas, not just the transit of gas, and this is not what Russia agreed to. (The price for the gas that Ukraine uses and whether Ukraine has been stealing gas intended for transit are at the heart of the issue.)
-New meeting, Russia saying how bad Ukraine is. Ukraine saying Russia is lying, they didn't steal any gas.
-New agreement. All parties signed, it's good to go.
-Today, gas turned on at 10:30am, but there are problems - from the BBC:

"Gazprom (Russian gas company) deputy head Alexander Medvedev said Ukraine had failed to carry the gas westwards to Europe after it resumed pumping it across their border. Kiev said it could not pump the gas as Russia had switched the transit route....This was later confirmed by EU monitors, although the amount of gas, they said, was "very limited".

Mr Medvedev said Gazprom had informed the European Commission it was unable to supply gas through Ukraine because Kiev had not opened any export pipelines.
"Ukraine didn't open the route for gas transit...," he said.
"If the system is closed, we can't provide gas. The Ukrainian side cynically informed us that the gas transport system had been reoriented to domestic consumers." After the gas was switched on at Sudzha, Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz demanded "the immediate resumption of even supply of gas along all transit routes", saying the amount and direction of the gas had not been agreed by the two sides. "

So, if they didn't agree on the amount and direction of the gas, just what DID they agree on?

So, here we are: school to be reconvened and yet the country is still consuming more gas then they are receiving from other sources, so are using reserves daily. I know that our 4 or so buildings is not going to break the bank, but the attitude now around here is quite positive that the gas will flow soon, yet daily there is another stumbling block. In two countries nuclear plants are being taken out of mothballs (they were turned off as part of these countries agreements to join the EU) to create power. Some systems have switched to diesal, causing huge amounts of smog in this cold weather. There are hundreds of thousands of people without heat in their homes across Eastern Europe, factories are on slow down or are closed which is going to have a major impact on the economies which were already hurting, etc., etc. I think it crazy that we are going back to school when the issue is not only not resolved, but seems to be escalating.