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Medvedev in Germany for strategic pipeline launch

08 November 2011, 13:43 CET
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(LUBMIN) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened on Tuesday a pipeline pumping Russian gas to Western Europe, a massive project set to deepen energy reliance on Moscow.

Medvedev and Merkel joined the prime ministers of France and the Netherlands, Francois Fillon and Mark Rutte, and EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger in symbolically cranking open the Nord Stream gas link in this northeastern German town, and underlined its strategic significance.

"The inauguration of the pipeline is a major event and important for reinforcing ties between Russia and Germany and between Russia and Europe," Medvedev said ahead of the ceremony.

"It is also a step towards securing Europe's energy supply."

Merkel called the supply route "one of the biggest infrastructure projects of our time" and said Russia was a crucial and reliable energy partner.

The inauguration marked the arrival of Siberian gas into the European grid through the first of two 1,200-kilometre (750-mile) pipelines running under the Baltic Sea, connecting Russia directly with Germany.

The consortium for the 7.4-billion-euro ($10.2 billion) project is a joint venture between the Russian state-held gas giant Gazprom, German firms BASF and EON, Dutch company Gasunie and GDF Suez of France.

Once fully operational late next year, the twin pipelines will transport 55 billion cubic metres (1.9 trillion cubic feet) of gas a year to the EU for at least half a century, enough to supply around 26 million homes, Nord Stream says.

But Nord Stream is becoming operational just as the EU re-assesses its own reliance on Russia -- currently supplier of more than a quarter of Europe's gas -- as its primary energy source.

Russia loaded the first Siberian gas into the link in September and aims to use it to reduce its dependence on Ukraine and other transit nations where pricing disputes have occasionally disrupted delivery to Europe.

However the project has been under fire since then Russian president Vladimir Putin and the German chancellor at the time, Gerhard Schroeder, sealed the partnership in 2005.

Schroeder is now head of the Nord Stream shareholders' committee.

Poland and the Baltic states have long charged that the project, which bypasses their territory, will leave them on their own when bargaining with Russia for their own gas supplies.

Meanwhile Sweden has raised ecological objections to the massive seabed pipeline, which Gazprom has brushed aside.

On a political level, critics say Nord Stream will further tether the EU to Russia while there are serious concerns about Moscow's commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

"Nord Stream will boost security of supply but also increase dependency on Russia," the conservative German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote this week.

"Supply is too important to rely on one supplier -- the blend is what counts. The EU needs to promote supply projects which are not subject to Russian influence."

However Merkel insisted Russia could be trusted as Europe's chief energy ally.

"When we talk about security of the energy supply, we must of course also talk about diversification but we can say that despite diversification, Russia is one of our outstanding energy suppliers," she said.

"The sources of supply must be secure. Which is why we will remain tied to each other for decades."


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