"The International [Gas Transmission] Consortium proposed to continue the Nord Stream project and to construct the second pipeline, the Nord Stream 2. I should say that it is not an alternative to the South Stream. And it does not compete with anybody in this sense," Putin said at a meeting with heads of international news agencies on Friday.
The Russian president expressed regret that the South Stream project was not implemented.
"Of course we regret the fact that we were prevented from implementing the ‘South Stream.’ But I asked our colleagues today, why did you not fight for its existence before? The countries that were interested, Bulgaria, other states. They could have gone to the European Parliament," Putin said.
The South Stream gas pipeline was intended to traverse the Black Sea to deliver Russian natural gas through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia to Italy and Austria to avoid exporting gas through the territory of Ukraine.
The European Commission was against the implementation of the South Stream as the project was allegedly in breach of the EU third energy package, under which one and the same company cannot own the gas and operate the pipeline. On December 1, 2014, Putin announced that Russia would halt the implementation of the South Stream.
The Nord Stream 2 project aims to deliver 55 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas a year to the European Union across the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing Ukraine. The gas pipeline project plans to use the original Nord Stream pipeline for 86-percent of the route before branching off.
