Slovak PM calls Nordstream expansion deal a betrayal

Gazprom signed the deal with Germany’s E.ON and BASF/Wintershall, Austria’s OMV, ENGIE of France and Royal Dutch Shell.

The route under the Baltic Sea from Russian Federation would have a capacity of 55 billion cubic metres per year and would double the flow of the existing Nord Stream pipeline now linking the two countries.

“They’re simply making fools of us”, Fico charged at a news conference.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) – The prime ministers of Slovakia and Ukraine condemned on Thursday a recent deal to expand a pipeline that delivers natural gas directly from Russian Federation to Germany.

His Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico, said the project contradicted the European Union’s discussion on how to help Ukraine and that his country feels betrayed.

Shell spokesman Jonathan French declined to comment beyond referring to an earlier statement by Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden that “new projects like Nord Stream-2 are needed to ensure that Europe’s demand for energy is met, especially as gas production in Europe itself is falling”. “You can’t talk for months about how to stabilize the situation and then take a decision that puts Ukraine and Slovakia into an unenviable situation”.

This is at odds with political agreements made at the European Council, Fico said adding that he will raise the issue at next month’s EU summit.

Fico said doing so through the Nordstream expansion would cost Ukraine billions of euros in badly-need transit fees and deprive Slovakia of hundreds of millions of euros in revenue.

Yatsenyuk pointed out that Ukraine will lose €1.5 billion per year in income from gas transit due to the construction of Nord Stream, while the move has not brought any additional energy independence for the EU.

“We have significantly increased purchasing volumes of gas over the past few weeks and have nearly reached a 100-percent capacity”.