For the European Commission it is paramount to have adialogue with the EU Member States from Central East and Southeast Europe, a Commission spokesperson told New Europe on February 19, asked if the Commission was open to Russian President VladimirPutin’s offer to discuss with theEUalternative options to South Stream, including an extension ofthe planned Turkish Stream pipeline to Bulgaria and Hungary. The Commission spokesperson added, however, that there are “no new developments with regard to Russian gas plans”.
Putin said Russia is ready to build Turkish Stream in a volume enough to supply gas via Turkey to the EU. “If it is possible from the logistics point of view, we are ready to go further to Bulgaria - the European Commission is already asking us to do that; we are ready to go to Greece,” ITAR-TASS quoted Putin as saying.
The Kremlin chief also said Russia had never dropped South Stream-related plans. “We simply were forced to close this project, they [the EU] did not let us implement it,” he quipped.
Meanwhile, Putin said Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is ready to work with Turkey on Turkish Stream. During his visit to Hungary, Putin raised an option to expand the proposed Russian pipeline into Turkey to include spurs that would take the gas through Greece and the Balkans to Hungary. “If they (the European Commission) don’t hinder us, then in essence we could realise part of the former South Stream project via Turkey,” Putin said.
During his visit to Budapest that strengthened Hungary’s close ties with Russia, Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said they had reached agreement to extend a gas supply contract that expires this year.
“We are convinced that locking Russia out of Europe is not rational,” Orban said. “Whoever thinks that Europe can be competitive, that the European economy can be competitive without economic cooperation with Russia, whoever thinks that energy security can exist in Europe without the energy that comes from Russia, is chasing ghosts,” he added. Orban had repeatedly voiced his dissatisfaction with EU objections against South Stream.
In December, Putin scrapped the $40 billion South Stream plan to supply gas to southern Europe without crossing Ukraine, citing EU objections, and instead named Turkey as its preferred partner for an alternative pipeline later named Turkish Stream.
The Commission’s spokesperson said adialogue with the EU Member States from Central East and South East Europe would establish a regional priority infrastructure roadmap and advance its implementation in order to develop missing infrastructure and improve security of gas supplies. This is a priority for the European Commission.
The European Commission and respective EU Member States agreed that the objective for each Member State should be to have access to at least three different sources. In this respect the Commission has identified fourteen projects that are key to achieving this objective.
The spokesperson said the Action Plan with concrete deliverables to ensure realisation of the priority projects will be elaborated on working level in regional sub-groups and is to be adopted during the next meeting of the High-level Group in June.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/putin-willing-exhume-south-stream-eu