BRUSSELS, October 27. /TASS/. Russia will not negotiate with the EU on the Nord Stream-2, this issue is beyond the competence of the European Commission, Russia's permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov told TASS.
"We do not need such negotiations, and they know about it. Nord Stream-2 is an underwater gas pipeline running through neutral waters. The European Commission is a regulator only on the territory of the EU and does not have any extraterritorial rights. The gas pipeline, is beyond its competence," the Russian diplomat said.
"We are ready to talk about the Nord Stream 2, with the European Union, the African Union, with aliens, if they ask, but there is nothing to negotiate. It's a commercial project, which is not based on any intergovernmental documents," he added.
Chizhov also recalled that so far the European Commission does not have a mandate to conduct such negotiations on behalf of the EU Council.
"We know that they do not have a consensus and will not have it in the coming months. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker spoke about it the other day," the diplomat said, citing Juncker's statement made on October 20 after the EU summit.
On July 9, the European Commission requested the mandate to hold talks with Russia on Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from the European Union member-states.
According to the Deputy Head of the EU Energy Union Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission intends to hold talks with Russia to develop an intergovernmental agreement that would guarantee compliance of this document with "international and European energy standards." These principles include transparency in the functioning of the gas pipeline, non-discriminatory tariff formation, provision of independent access to the pipeline to independent companies, and ensuring the independence of the operator of the future gas pipeline.
That means that the European Commission intends to apply the terms of the EU's Third Energy Package to Nord Stream 2. This package is discriminatory for Russia. In particular it obliges the gas pipeline operator to pump gas from producers independent of Gazprom. At the moment, the provisions of the Third Energy Package of the EU are not applied to Nord Stream 2, since the pipeline is entirely outside the EU territory.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is expected to come into service at the end of 2019. The pipeline is set to run from the Russian coast along the Baltic Sea bed to the German shore. Each of the pipeline’s two stretches will have a capacity of 27.5 bln cubic meters. The new pipeline will double the capacity of the first stretch and will basically follow its route.