RBTH: Gazprom throws down the gauntlet to Europe over gas supplies via Turkey
Russia plans to stop supplying gas via Ukrainian pipelines by 2020, Gazprom president, Alexi Miller says.
If Europe expects to receive gas supplies through Gazprom's new Turkish Stream pipeline, announced in December after the collapse of plans for a South Stream line through Bulgaria, it must build its own infrastructure by that year to guarantee continued supplies, the Gazprom chief told business daily Kommersant.
"Gazprom has finally assumed a hard position, giving Europe an ultimatum," said Ivan Kapitonov, Deputy Head of the Department of State Regulation of the Economy at Moscow's Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Now it was Gazprom's European partners who would carry the risks related to building a pipeline to ensure supplies. "We are witnessing the strengthening of Russia's negotiating position, which is supported by weighty arguments."