Prodi declines South Stream post

Quote: Romano Prodi, Italy’s outgoing prime minister, has declined a proposal by Vladimir Putin, Russian president, to head the South Stream pipeline project bringing Russian natural gas to Europe once he leaves office next month.
Aides suggested, however, that Mr Prodi’s answer was not final. One close associate said the former European Commission president had not made a decision about his future following his imminent departure from Italian politics.
But the associate doubted that Mr Prodi, 68, would want to experience the kind of opprobrium that greeted Gerhard Schröder when he stepped down as German chancellor in 2005 and accepted from Mr Putin a top post in the Nord Stream Baltic pipeline that they had promoted together.
South Stream, the company that plans to pipe Russian gas across the Black Sea, is jointly owned by Russia’s Gazprom and Italy’s Eni. Mr Prodi and Mr Putin first discussed the concept over dinner in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in late 2006.
Alexei Miller, chief executive of Gazprom, was in Rome on Monday for lunch with Mr Prodi and Paolo Scaroni, the head of Eni, which is Gazprom’s biggest European buyer.
Mr Scaroni, a key player in developing closer energy ties between Italy and Russia, on Monday endorsed the idea of having Mr Prodi in charge of the $10bn (€6.4bn, £5bn) South Stream project.
South Stream’s route or routes into Europe once it crosses the Black Sea into Bulgaria have not been finally agreed. Hungary, Greece and the Balkans are all possibilities, as well as Italy. Kostas Karamanlis, Greece’s prime minister, visited Moscow on Monday. The Greek embassy said the visit was likely to lead to Athens being involved in the project.
South Stream is projected to carry 33bn cubic metres of gas a year to south and central Europe.
Russia wants alternative routes for the gas it sells to Europe to reduce its reliance on routes through Ukraine and Belarus, where pricing disputes and concerns over inadequate infrastructure risk interrupting supplies.
The EU and the US want to cut Europe’s reliance on Russian gas by promoting the Nabucco pipeline, which would bring gas from the Caspian region through Turkey. Russia insists the South Stream pipeline is not a rival to Nabucco.
Gazprom took further steps to strengthen its hold on natural gas supplies to Europe this month by signing a joint venture with Libya and entering preliminary talks on a project to pipe Nigerian gas to Europe across the Sahara.

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