MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/. The Nord Stream 2 project will ensure more stable gas supplies to Europe, Austrian Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner said at a meeting with Russia Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday.
"We should ask ourselves whether we can jointly implement the Nord Stream 2 project in order to ensure more stable gas supplies to Europe and deepen our contacts," he said.
According to Vice-Chancellor, he has already discussed the project with Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak and spoke about it with Chairman of Gazprom's management committee Alexey Miller on Tuesday. "And here we’ve achieved very positive results," he said.
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Russia’s Economic Development Minister, Austria’s Vice-Chancellor will jointly promote Nord Stream 2
Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev and Vice-Chancellor of Austria Reinhold Mitterlehner have agreed to joint promote the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. Ulyukayev said this to reporters after his meeting with Mitterlehner in Moscow.
"We discussed the most pressing issues to date and agreed on how we will promote this project together. This project is of course our mutual interest, which increases the level of energy security in Europe. This is a win-win game for all parties involved," he said.
The Russian Minister also said that he had extensive discussions with his Austrian counterpart about import substitution. He noted that Austrian companies are quite actively involved in these activities in engine construction — creating a modern diesel, gas, electric motors; production of medical equipment, equipment for timber industry.
"We discussed specific projects, entries to a real 100% import substitution in a number of industries with high dependence on supply of imported machinery and equipment. These are some interesting projects and they are already being implemented," the minister added.
According to him, the drop in trade with Austria is much lower than in trade with the EU in general.
In 2015, Russia trade with the EU fell by 37%. At the same time, Russian exports to Austria increased both in value and in volume, Ulyukayev said.
"I think in 2016 we can even expect recession to be over and return to growth of our turnover," he said.