Western companies should participate in managing the Ukrainian gas transit system, German Energy Envoy Peter Fischer told EurActiv Slovakia at the SET Plan – Central European Energy Conference X in Bratislava.
Peter Fischer is Deputy Director General for Energy & Climate Policy and Export Control at the German Federal Foreign Office.
Fischer spoke to EurActiv.sk’s Pavol Szalai.
Last April, you came to Bratislava to reassure the Slovaks about Nord Stream 2. There is still a lot of opposition to it in Central Europe. Has anything changed for Germany?
Actually, not much has changed. Nord Stream 2 is still not a project of the German government. Nord Stream 2 is 100% Gazprom-owned.
According to analysts, the change of the structure brings financial risks.
Can Gazprom build Nord Stream 2 by itself? That is a problem for Gazprom, not for the German government. The Nord Stream 2 company tells us they are moving forward according to plan.
My job as a German diplomat is make certain that any energy infrastructure project in the EU will be not seen as zero sum game. In the EU, we look after our common interest. We try to exercise solidarity between us. And the Energy Union means we look after our energy interests together. At the same time, projects do need to come from the market.
One of the big issues around Nord Stream 2 is the impact on gas transit through the Ukraine after 2019. In that aspect, we have developed some diplomatic activity with the Ukraine and Russia. Together with Slovakia, we are trying to ensure there is transit and there is a commercially viable model for that.
Do they trust German companies, which agreed to build Nord Stream 2 with Gazprom?
The idea is to involve a group of companies on the Ukrainian side, so that the Russians contract with Western companies for the gas transit. And a group of Western companies contracts with the Ukraine, so that we remove the element of distrust.
In order to ensure gas transit through the Ukraine, Western companies would make agreements with Ukrainian companies. Is it a kind of guarantee?
The idea is that the Western companies manage part of the transit system. They agree on that management with the Ukraine. And they agree with Russia about the details of the transit – volume and prices. That would be a way of taking it out of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Read full article at EurActiv.com: http://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/interview/fischer-gas-can-flow-via-nord-stream-2/
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