/ world today news/ The letter of the leaders of the 8 EU countries against the gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea may be useful for the Kremlin, because it will allow it to revive the pipeline project in Bulgaria without exposing itself.
The decisive rejection of the Russian Nord Stream 2 project by a number of countries in the European Union has taken an institutional form. The leaders of the 8 EU countries sent an official letter to the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, with the request to prevent the construction of this gas pipeline on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. This step cannot be described as sensational, but it is clearly a new stage in the conflict over the pipe, which Russia and influential European companies, including German, which are supported by the German government, want to lay.
Moscow wants to stop the transit through Ukraine at any cost
The reaction in Moscow to the written attack on Nord Stream 2 was too calm. In response to a journalist’s question, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexey Meshkov called on the EU not to politicize the project and treat it exclusively as a commercial one. This is the verbal formula behind which the interested German companies are also hiding.
Indeed, Gazprom, albeit to their detriment, offered them practically win-win terms (payments to the joint venture-operator of the pipeline are guaranteed, regardless of the volumes actually released). Therefore, representatives of the companies participating in the project, E.ON and “Wintershall”, obviously think that they can demonstrate with a clear conscience that they are engaged in business and speak beautiful phrases about strengthening the energy security of Europe.
In fact, however, the project is highly political, because at its core lies the Kremlin’s desire to solve a geopolitical supertask – to stop the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine, against which a hybrid war was waged. This task was originally supposed to be carried out by South Stream, but some of its provisions violate EU law. If there was a desire, the controversial issues could be resolved in the course of negotiations with Brussels, but at the end of 2014, Vladimir Putin, on the wave of post-Crimean hubris of the minute, closed the project and proclaimed the “Turkish Stream”.
Of all the options, “South Stream” is the most rational
But by the summer of 2015, it became clear that the Turkish side delayed its implementation in an effort to negotiate more favorable conditions and discounts for itself. It was then that the idea to double the capacity of the Nord Stream gas pipeline already operating through the Baltic Sea, which had been rejected earlier due to unfitness, was urgently revived, relying on proven Western European trading partners.
Of course, the most economical and at the same time the most European in spirit would be the option of storing the Ukrainian transit and the joint modernization (Russia-Ukraine-EU) of the gas transmission system operating since the Soviet times. But if Moscow wants to bypass its once brotherly neighbor at all costs, the most rational solution is still “South Stream”. However, it is oriented towards South-Eastern Europe, where the real demand for Russian gas and new pipelines is high. By the way, for this reason, the EU may soon switch to concessions in the form of conditions and preferences. Plus, the necessary infrastructure, which costs a lot of money, has already been prepared along the Russian coast of the Black Sea.
How to reverse a decision made by Putin?
Moscow seems to understand this very well. But how to reverse a decision made personally by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? Well, except to respond to the “request of the working people”. In this case, it is the Bulgarians. In recent months, reports have become more frequent about Sofia’s desire to revive the project for an underwater gas pipeline from Russia, which is particularly profitable for Bulgaria. In parallel, high-ranking Russian officials began to send unequivocal signals about Moscow’s changing position. The permanent representative of Russia in the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, speaking about “South Stream”, declared at the end of January on “Rossiya 24” television, and therefore to the general Russian audience: “Perhaps this project will be revived. And in the not too distant future.” . And in mid-March, the Russian Deputy Minister of Energy, Yuri Sentyurin, admitted that “Bulgarian partners are actively raising the issue of resuming negotiations on South Stream.”
At the same time, the preparations for the construction of Nord Stream 2 really continue. On March 11, the operator company of this gas pipeline announced the winners of the tender for the supply of pipes – two Russian and one German company, the contracts with which, however, have not yet been signed. This decision can mean several things – and an attempt to play the two projects against each other, to negotiate the most favorable terms on one of them; and hope that both routes can be built; and pre-booking of production facilities.
And yet, where more convincing evidence than any statements about the imminent revival of the arbitrarily canceled South Stream is the memorandum signed by Gazprom in Rome on February 24 on the intention to lay a pipeline for the delivery of Russian gas through Greece and Italy. However, how will this gas get to Greece? Well, look at the map: if you take into account the strained relations between Russia and Turkey, there is no other way than through Bulgaria.
In this sense, Moscow is not disturbed by the demarche against “Nord Stream 2” of the eight leaders from Eastern Europe, which Bulgaria did not join. Perhaps even he is of use to her.
Obstacles to the Baltic route may well become justifications for the revival of South Stream, which Moscow will simply rename “Balkan Stream” to shame itself.
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Andrey Gurkov, DV
Berlin / Germany
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