A key intergovernmental agreement on the European Union's Nabucco gas pipeline will be signed by early July at the latest, European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Tuesday.
"We are close to signing the Nabucco deal, in late June or early July," Piebalgs was quoted as saying by Mediafax news agency during a joint press conference with Romania's Economy Minister Adriean Videanu.
At a meeting in Prague in May, the E.U. and Turkey said they wanted to wrap up talks on the Nabucco deal "as quickly as possible [and] to sign it by the end of June 2009."
The 3,300-kilometer Nabucco pipeline is due to bring gas from the Caspian Sea to Austria via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, while bypassing Russia, in a bid to reduce Europe's energy dependence on Moscow.
But Piebalgs also appeared favorable to Russia's rival South Stream project, describing it as an "additional gas source for Europe, which is not going against our interests."
"A limited number of pipelines makes us vulnerable, we saw this in January [with the Russia-Ukraine price row] and the explosion of a gas pipeline in Transdniestr, so the more pipelines the better," he was quoted as saying by Newsin agency.
The South Stream pipeline, developed by Russia's gas monopoly OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) and Italy's Eni SpA (E), is to channel Russian gas through Bulgaria to Western Europe via a pipeline under the Black Sea.