MOSCOW, July 4. /TASS/. Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project will be implemented in spite of attempts on the part of the European Commission (EC) to extend the effects of the EU’s Third Energy Package to the underwater part of the pipeline, the Russian Ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov said on Monday in an interview with Rossiya’24 news channel.

At the beginning of June, the EC requested mandates from the EU member-states for talks with Russia regarding Nord Stream 2. It plans to discuss with Moscow a special legislative package for the future operations of the pipeline

Although the EC believes the Nord Stream 2 project has discrepancies with the Third Energy Package, it still finds construction of the pipeline possible. The disputes revolve around the fact the EU internal market regulations and provisions of the Third Energy Package will not apply to Nord Stream 2, as the pipeline will stretch across seafloor.

"I think the prospects for this are zero and the EC officials realize it perfectly well," Chizhov said.

He underlined the absence of a subject for any intergovernmental agreement, since the Nord Stream 2 project is not a state one.

"Nord Stream 2 is not an invention of the Russian side, or even Gazprom’s invention," Chizhov said. "It’s an initiative of Gazprom’s partners and I think that it will translate into reality in spite of all the games around it."

Construction of the 1,220 kilometer-long pipeline is to begin in 2018 and to be completed at the end of 2019. It will cross the floor of the Baltic Sea from the Russian shores through to Germany.

Each of the two gas pipe threats will have a throughput capacity for 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

The new pipeline will mostly have the same route as the first Nord Stream pipeline commissioned in 2011 and will reinforce it.

Nord Stream 2 will provide a direct connection between the Russian deposits of natural gas and its European consumers bypassing East-European and some Central European transit countries.