Pipeliners

May 13, 2009 – (UPI) - KIEV, Ukraine. Moscow is politicizing issues in the European energy sector through its Nord and South Stream gas pipeline projects, the Ukrainian president said. Viktor Yushchenko told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency Russia was using European moves to diversify the regional energy sector as a political move to secure its influence with its own pipeline projects. "These are politicized projects," he said. South Stream would bring Russian gas along a southeastern route to Italy while Nord Stream would bring gas along the floor of the Baltic Sea to Germany. A January dispute between Moscow and Kiev over gas contracts and debts prompted Russian gas monopoly Gazprom to disrupt gas supplies to Ukraine for weeks. Europe gets about a quarter of its gas from Russia, and 80 percent of that travels through Soviet-era pipelines in Ukraine. Yushchenko said it was difficult to "find grounds for spending $12 billion to $15 billion to implement these projects rather than to ensure the (gas) transit through the existing system." He also lashed out at the justification for the projects, saying the problem was not a lack of infrastructure but a lack of a common energy policy. "These projects do not add anything to Europe," he said. "There is no problem with the transit. What is needed is joint ideology on gas production, transit and consumption."