Brussels, 12/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - In a telephone conversation on 11 December, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told Energy Union Commissioner Maros Sefcovic that Russia was pulling out of the South Stream gas pipeline project. “Minister Novak confirmed to Vice-President Sefcovic that the South Stream Project would no longer be pursued by Russia”, the Commission said in a press release.
The Commission says that, early next year, Sefcovic will present a proposal on the organisational structure for the high-level working group, as established at the meeting on Tuesday 9 December among the countries which had been stakeholders in the South Stream project - Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovenia (see EUROPE 11214). Sefcovic “believes that thanks to the joint effort the high-level working group will start delivering positive results very soon”, the Commission goes on to say. “We will now intensify our work with the member states of Central Eastern Europe and South-East Europe on the interconnection of the European markets and diversification of gas supplies. These are the objectives of the future energy union, which is a priority of the new Commission”, the commissioner commented.
Gerhard Schröder rounds on the Commission. In the view of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who chairs the supervisory board of the consortium responsible for operating the German-Russian gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, Nord Stream, the main causes of the cessation of the South Stream project are European bureaucrats and their scheming, and the fall in gas demand in Europe. “The EU has, from the start, tried to impede the construction of South Stream, first with the Nabucco project, which was ultimately laid to rest because of the associated risks, and then with bureaucratic scheming”, Schröder is reported by Russian news agency Itar-tass as saying at a meeting of representatives of the Russian and European business sectors. He said that “attempts were made, and they were successful, to force Bulgaria not to take certain decisions and not to give certain approvals”. He also described the agreement reached between Russia and Turkey as “a decision of sovereign states” in which EU countries “must not interfere”. At the same time, he said he hoped that Russia and Gazprom “would not turn their backs on as big a market as Europe” (our translation). (EH)