(FRANKFURT) - Germany will prevent Russia from driving a wedge between European Union members on a Baltic Sea pipeline project, an official said Monday as leaders prepared to tackle the sensitive issue.

"The Russians must understand they cannot take European states hostage one by one to further their interests, there will be a common European Union position," German government envoy Andreas Schockenhoff told SWR radio.

He spoke as Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Wiesbaden, western Germany amid rising tension between the EU and its giant neighbour to the east.

On their agenda is the "Nord Stream" gas pipeline project through which Russia seeks to increase supplies to the EU market but which bypasses Poland, and Baltic states which are heavily dependent on Russia for gas shipments.

The 1,198-kilometer (750-mile) pipeline from Vyborg, Russia to Greifswald, Germany is also viewed with concern by environmentalists in Sweden and Finland.

Germany has backed the project however, and former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is a director of the consortium building it, which includes Russian gas monopoly Gazprom along with German energy and industrial groups EON and BASF.

Merkel has expressed less enthusiasm for the project than Schroeder did, but has not completely shelved the plan, according to specialists in Berlin.

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