EU's Juncker Folds To Gazprom On South Stream Pipeline | Zero Hedge - 0 views
www.zerohedge.com/...-gazprom-south-stream-pipeline
war & peace pipelinestan EU Russia South-Stream U.S.-foreign-policy
![](/images/link.gif)
-
“European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has insisted the $40 billion South Stream natural gas pipeline can still go ahead and accused Russia of holding EU-member Bulgaria to ransom when it said it had abandoned the project. Speaking after talks with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, whose country South Stream would traverse making it a major beneficiary, Juncker rebutted Russia’s statement that EU competition rules had killed it. He told reporters issues relating to the pipeline were not insurmountable and he was working with Bulgaria to address them. Russia said on Monday it had abandoned the pipeline, which would have bypassed Ukraine, Gazprom’s traditional transit route for Russian gas, citing EU competition requirements for a pipeline’s ownership to be divorced from its cargo. It said it was working on an alternative route via Turkey
-
A few remarks to the above: yes, the Bulgarians are understandably up in arms, but had it been up to them, the construction activities would never have been interrupted in the first place. As things stand, the previous Bulgarian government was badgered by the EU and visited by John McCain, whose primary mission was apparently to stop the pipeline from being built. The government announced that all construction on the pipeline would be stopped two hours after McCain left.
-
Juncker says the EU will do whatever it can to improve relations with Russia and it is certainly true that if there are disagreements it always “takes two to tango”. However, let us stop to think for a moment what this means in unambiguous, clear language. From the perspective of the EU (and especially the US) leadership, it means that Russia’s government must accede 100% to every demand they make. We already pointed out that this is an essentially fascist foreign policy. Nothing but complete surrender is acceptable. We don’t think it would be impossible to come to an agreement regarding the Ukraine crisis that everybody could in theory live with (the über-hawks in both the US and Russia excepted – basically the neo-cons in the US and assorted nationalists in Russia. We do have a tad more understanding for the paranoia of former Eastern Bloc countries). By now it should be rather glaringly obvious though that economic sanctions and demonizing the Russian leadership at every opportunity won’t do the trick.