EU raises legal concerns over South Stream agreements

摘要

Russia's state-owned gas company Gazprom expects to start construction in April 2015 on the Hungarian section of the South Stream pipeline, which will transport gas to Europe via the Black Sea. The company started construction of the Bulgarian section in October, and launched similar work in Serbia in November. Gazprom aims to complete both the off and onshore sections of the giant project in 2017. The company is going ahead with the project despite rising costs and EU concern that all of the intergovernmental agreements signed by host countries with Russia break EU energy rules and must be renegotiated. The biggest issues to address are unbundling, third-party access and tariff structures. As an upstream producer, Gazprom is not allowed under the EU's third energy package rules to own pipelines inside the EU.