The conflict between Georgia and Russia requires a rethink of a planned pipeline which will pump Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a German newspaper on Saturday. European countries should not boost their dependence on Russia with projects of this sort, the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung reported Tusk as saying.
"We should set the course to expand alternative energy sources. Then Russia will be unable to exert its influence," the paper quoted Tusk as saying in extracts of an interview released before publication. The Nord Stream pipeline, which will bypass Poland, is a joint venture involving Russia's Gazprom, Germany's E.ON and BASF.
Poland, Lithuania and Estonia are angry at being left out of the gas supply route to open in 2011. The Russian dispute with Georgia over South Ossetia has heightened concern in several European countries about an overdependence on Russian energy. However, German politicians rejected Tusk's calls.
"We must reduce our dependence on imports but not building any more pipelines is the wrong solution," conservative Peter Ramsauer, head of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) in parliament, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper. The CSU form a block in parliament with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU).
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