WARSAW (AFP) — Poland wants talks with Germany and Russia about a controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline project steered by Russian giant Gazprom, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in an interview published Monday.
"I want to launch an in-depth discussion," Tusk said in the Polish edition of the magazine Newsweek.
"We need to demystify the problem. We need to understand why the Russians are holding out for this project under the Baltic, which is three times more expensive than a gas pipeline crossing Poland, and what the conditions would be for changing it," he said.
The Nord Stream consortium, of which Gazprom controls 51 percent, agreed in 2005 to build a 1,200-kilometre (740-mile) undersea pipeline from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany.
Gazprom and its German partners BASF and EON, which each hold a 20-percent stake in the project, aim to use the pipeline to supply energy-hungry western Europe from 2011.
But the the project has raised hackles in Germany and Poland, as well as environmental fears in Baltic Sea neighbours Sweden and Finland.
Warsaw fears that opting for an underwater rather than a land route will enable Gazprom to cut off supplies to Poland without hurting its Western European customers.
Russia has regularly been accused of using Gazprom's control of a hefty slice of Europe's gas market for political ends, allegedly turning off the taps to punish governments that fail to toe Moscow's line.
Warsaw's previous conservative nationalist government, which lost power to Tusk's liberals in an election last October, was fiercely opposed to the Nord Stream project.
Germany has also faced accusations of sidelining the interests of other members of the European Union in formerly Moscow-dominated Eastern Europe simply to secure gas supplies.
The German government has dismissed the criticism and called for less "hysteria" in the debate.
Although Tusk's campaign platform included a pledge to mend ties with Germany and Russia on a string of issues, he has not signalled that Poland will climb down on the pipeline issue.
Poland has not been the only active opponent of the pipeline project.
Several months ago, Estonia refused to grant Nord Stream the right to carry out surveys in its waters, citing security and environmental worries.
Estonia's fellow ex-Soviet Baltic states Latvia and Estonia have also been deeply critical of the plan.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
