Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants his country's engagement in the rescue of automaker Adam Opel GmbH to be the first of many large-scale cooperation projects with Europe, the newspaper Handelsblatt reported Monday.
"This precisely defined procedure could be the prototype for other projects," the paper quoted Putin as telling a group of journalists and academics over the weekend.
As reported, General Motors last week agreed to sell a majority stake in its European operations to a consortium bankrolled by Russian state-owned savings bank OAO Sberbank (SBER.RS), after heavy lobbying by the German government.
Putin said Russia was prepared to work together with Europe in aerospace projects such as military transport planes and antiaircraft missile technology, saying: "cooperation builds mutual trust, and that is the most important in security issues."
Elsewhere in the discussion, Putin repeated his criticisms of resistance to the Nord Stream gas pipeline, due to take natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, arguing that "people in Europe are busy burnishing the image of the Russian bear that wants to swallow everyone."
He noted that the country is looking to expand its gas export markets to the Middle East, by extending the Blue Stream pipeline that goes under the Black Sea to Turkey as far as Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus.