Russia, Bulgaria shelve differences on pipeline

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia and Bulgaria have set aside their differences over the proposed South Stream gas pipeline to Europe, paving the way for an agreement within the next couple of weeks.

“We have no disagreements left,” Putin said at a televised news conference with his Bulgarian counterpart. “Our earlier disagreements were purely technical.”

Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev held talks with Putin on Monday during a three-day visit to Moscow after tensions emerged between the two countries over the proposals for the Kremlin-lobbied project, mooted by Russia as a key alternative to existing export routes crossing Ukraine and Belarus.

Putin said the pipe deal could be signed within a couple of weeks.

The Bulgarian premier later met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who had earlier canceled at the last minute a meeting scheduled for Monday amid signs that Bulgaria was wavering on South Stream.

Earlier, Putin unexpectedly pulled out of an energy conference in Sofia last week because of Bulgarian concerns over the project.

A key sticking point has been Bulgaria’s desire for Russia’s Gazprom to build the pipeline network for South Stream from scratch, while Russia favors the cheaper alternative of using existing gas networks. Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov recently said Russia should stick to an agreement of developing a new network.

Bulgaria is also seeking firm guarantees that South Stream would ensure more stable supplies than those provided by the existing route.

Stanishev has repeatedly stated that he considers the South Stream project to be as important to Bulgaria as a separate pipeline project backed by the U.S. and Europe that will see gas piped from the Caspian Sea region to Europe, bypassing Russia.

Both South Stream and the so-called Nabucco project envisage Bulgaria as a key transit point between European consumers and natural resources in Russia — in the case of South Stream — and Central Asia and the Caspian Sea in the case of Nabucco.

Relations between Bulgaria and Russia soured earlier this year after Bulgaria emerged as one of the worst-affected countries when the Russian-Ukrainian dispute over gas supplies left homes in Europe without gas for heating.

Analysts said they expect any deal to be purely symbolic because South Stream — like Nabucco — is still a relatively distant prospect: The start of construction is slated for 2014, and envisages an expensive leg across the Black Sea.

During the talks, Bulgaria also approached Russia for financial assistance to build the Belene nuclear power plant — a year after it rejected a similar offer from Russia.