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Germany plans Baltic talks



By Upstream staff 

German President Horst Kohler said Poland and the Baltic states should be consulted over plans to build a subsea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, bypassing the Eastern European states.

The Baltic pipeline plans have added to fears in Eastern Europe that Berlin and Moscow might put their own interests ahead of those of their less powerful neighbours, jeapordising energy security in countries once part of the Warsaw Pact.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Berlin next month and talks are expected to focus on energy, including the Baltic link.

"I believe that Poland and the Baltic states should be included in this process," Kohler told a news conference after meeting his Polish counterpart in Warsaw today.

"We should hold talks on this issue with the participation of these countries. This is a necessary step," he added.

The main gas link between Germany and Russia is the Yamal pipeline running partly through Poland. It will hit its capacity of 34 billion cubic metres per year in early 2006.

Plans to expand it further, in line with earlier agreements, are in doubt after supplier and part-owner Gazprom signed a deal to invest in the subsea Baltic pipeline with German chemicals group BASF .

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has worked hard to build Berlin's ties with Moscow, raising concern in Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which have had cool relations with the Kremlin since joining Nato and the EU.

Kohler added that Poland's EU membership meant that its views and concerns would help shape the bloc's future common foreign policy towards Russia.

"It is absolutely necessary for Polish interests to be implemented in this foreign policy. The EU is the best guarentee that we will never make policy over Poland's head," he said.

"Today I can assure you that we will never talk about Poland without Poland."


Tuesday, 30 August, 2005, 13:23 GMT  | last updated: Tuesday, 30 August, 2005, 13:23 GMT

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