Europe warns on South Stream deals

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-061213.html

Europe warns on South Stream deals
By RFE/RL
Dec 6, '13

The European Commission is recommending that all European Union members who have signed agreements with Russia's South Stream natural-gas pipeline project renegotiate the terms of their deals.

Marlene Holzner, a spokeswoman for EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, said on December 5 that the agreements signed with Russia's Gazprom contradicted European legislation.

"We have looked into the intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) that were made between the member states through which South Stream would flow through and Russia, and we have seen that on a number of very important core issues of our energy market, these core principles are not reflected in the IGA and that is why we have advised those member states to renegotiate these IGAs," Holzner said.

Holzner went on to list the conflicts involved in the South Stream agreements.

[dipsydoodle]

1. What northern Europe including the UK needs

is the projected BP/Gazrom pipeline across the Baltic and the North Sea.

As its current elsewhere - the issues which the Ukraine have got with Gazprom are actually as a result of the terms agreed by Yulia Tymoshenko in 2009. That's both the price and the minimum contracted volume / purchase amount.