Dominique Ristori, the new Director General for Energy at the European Commission, said the EU Commission rules out the scenario that the Southern Stream pipeline is to be frozen in the EU area. According to Dominique Ristori, Brussels is keeping on negotiating energy relations with Russia.
April 23, Igor Yelkin, the executive officer of the civil engineering company Southern Stream – Bulgaria, highlighted that the project for building the pipeline running through Bulgaria is going on precisely on schedule. According to Igor Yelkin, the construction of the Bulgarian part is expected to start off in June 2014. April 19, Sabine Berger, a spokesperson of Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger, stated that the Southern pipeline project is not the EU’s top priority. She added while discussing the project, the European Commission is going to take into account the background of the relations between the EU and Russia.
April 17, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the EU Council to tighten the second round of sanctions against Russia and immediately switch to the third round amid the support of “separatists and armed groups” in Ukraine from the Russian side. European commissioners are insisting that the Southern pipeline construction should be halted and Europe has to search for other sources of gas supplies. Though, this resolution serves just as guidelines. The pipeline construction got underway in December 2012 in Anapa. Beside Russia, the gas pipeline is being laid through Bulgaria and Serbia and will be launched in Hungary soon. The total designed capacity is expected to be 63 billion cubic meters a year. The first line of the project will start operation in late 2015. The underwater part of the Southern Stream will run across the Black Sea bottom and connect Russia to Bulgaria. Then, the pipeline will diverge in two directions. The first line will go to Austria via Serbia and Hungary, the second one is supposed to reach the South of Italy via Greece. Moreover, Turkey has claimed its service line in the Southern Stream.