Participants of the Ukraine-EU summit have called for halting the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during a joint statement for the media with European Council President Donald Tusk and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker on the results of the 20th Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels on July 9, said that Ukraine remains a strategic partner of European countries in energy matters – “a partner who will supply the necessary gas to European countries.”
“And here’s what I want to say once again: the Nord Stream 2 is impossible, we call to stop the construction of this project,” the head of state said.
He noted that during the Ukraine-EU summit there was a talk about this project.
“This is not a commercial project, it is not economical or profitable – it is absolutely a political project, and there is no point, from the economic point of view, creating this project. This is absolutely a geopolitical project,” Poroshenko said.
According to him, Ukraine is trying to show its European partners that the purpose of this project is to weaken the country, to stop its gas supplies to Europe.
Poroshenko said implementation of Nord Stream 2 will completely erase the entire gas independence of Europe, as Europe will become more dependent in the gas sphere from the Russian Federation.
“We are doing our best to stop this Russian geopolitical project so that Europe could be free of monopolization of the European energy market,” Poroshenko said.
In turn, Tusk said: Now the European Commission is trying to create new energy rules that will help stop the implementation of this project, but I cannot say that at present this process is productive.
I think that this project is a mistake, it will not be in the interests of the European Union, we must defend our own interests, Tusk said.
In a joint statement on the results of the Ukraine-EU summit, the text of which was made public on the website of the president of Ukraine, it is stated that the European Union confirms Ukraine’s role as a strategic gas transit country, which provides affordable, safe and reliable gas supplies to the EU.
“We reaffirmed Ukraine’s role as a strategic transit country for gas, ensuring affordable, secure and sustainable supplies to the EU,” the statement says.
“In this context, we reconfirmed our readiness to engage in a trilateral process facilitated by the European Commission on the contractual framework for gas transit to the EU after 2019.”
