RUSSIA / GERMANY: Construction work began yesterday on an undersea gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany with the news that former chancellor Gerhard Schröder will join the board of the consortium behind the project.
The consortium brings together Russian monopoly Gazprom, holding a 51 per cent stake, and two German industrial giants, energy company Eon and chemicals concern BASF.
Gazprom chairman Aleksei Miller, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, said the €4 billion pipeline "will guarantee secure gas deliveries from Russia ... and increase Europe's energy security".
Mr Miller said Mr Schröder would take up a position responsible for shareholders' interests on the board of the pipeline consortium, to be registered in Switzerland. Since leaving office last month, Mr Schröder has already taken up a consulting position with the Zürich-based publishing group Ringier.
The first piece of the pipeline was symbolically welded together yesterday in the city of Cherepovets, 800km east of St Petersburg. The first leg of the pipeline will transport gas 916km to Vyborg on the Baltic Sea.
From there, a second undersea pipeline will carry the gas 1,200km to the northern German city of Greifswald.
News of the pipeline has angered governments in Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. The new pipeline will bypass existing pipelines through those countries, depriving them of subsidised gas and transit fees.