UPDATE: New min: Greece doesn’t abandon plans to host Russian gas pipe

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ATHENS/BRUSSELS, Jul 20 (PRIME) -- Greece intends to continue the project for construction of the so-called South European Pipeline meant to carry Russian gas to Central Europe from Turkey’s border, new Greek Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Panos Skourletis said Monday.

“I think it is a very big achievement, a large-scale project, and we must continue it,” he said during a ceremony of receiving powers from former minister Panagiotis Lafazanis.

Russia decided to construct the Turkish Stream, a pipeline that will run under the Black Sea to the Turkey–Greece border to replace the scrapped South Stream pipeline, which was supposed to carry Russian gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine. In June, Greece signed a memorandum to host extension of the pipeline for direct supplies to the E.U.

The 2 billion euro pipeline will be financed by a joint venture of Russia’s VEB Capital and Greece’s Energy Investments Public Enterprise S.A. The construction of the pipeline is to be launched in 2016 and finished in 2019.

EU AGAINST NEW PIPELINE

The South European pipeline is a priority for Greece, and it must implement the project despite E.U. efforts to block it, Lafazanis said.

“We’ve invested much effort in order to sign an agreement with Russia for the Southern European pipeline to run from the Turkish border to Central Europe, even despite pressure and counter-actions. Greece can walk a new path with an independent energy policy,” he said at the ceremony.

The pressure still continues. “The European Union is exerting pressure even now, it is trying to stop the Southern European gas pipeline project and interferes in the project’s implementation,” Lafazanis said, calling upon the new minister to carry on the work.

EU SUPPORTS GAS TRANSIT VIA UKRAINE

The E.U. Foreign Affairs Council has called for keeping the Russian gas transit route through Ukraine in future, according to the council’s conclusion seen by PRIME.

“On energy partnerships and dialogues: foreign policy instruments and channels for engagement should be used to open up opportunities for cooperation with increasingly important producing and transit countries particularly in our neighborhood, including the need to ensure, in line with the ongoing trilateral talks, the long-term energy supplies to and transit through Ukraine,” the council said.

On July 15, E.U. Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic said that Russia’s construction of new gas pipelines bypassing Ukraine is aimed only at terminating gas transit through the country, which is unacceptable for the E.U. and threatens its energy safety.

Besides the Turkish Stream, Gazprom is also carrying out the Nord Stream-2 project that implies construction of a second gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea.

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