The European Union’s biggest political problem for 2010 remains the same as it’s been for a long while – what to do about Russia. Dependent on Russia for much of its energy, the EU has had to play a balancing act of its own interests against those of countries like Georgia, who felt the wrath of Russian retaliation for pushing into South Ossetia in 2008. The EU backed down on that one and has to keep walking a tightrope when dealing with the Russians, so the views of Russian lawmakers such as Konstantin Kosachev are always heard avidly in Brussels and the 27 Member States, as well as EU candidates and neighbors.
Kosachev stopped during the European People’s Party Congress he attended in Bonn, Germany last month to talk to New Europe about the competing gas pipelines of Nabucco, backed by the EU, and the Russian-sponsored South Stream, as well as the role of the EU’s first so-called Foreign Minister, Catherine Ashton of the United Kingdom. As always, he had something to say.

Chairman Kosachev, South Stream is the favorite project of Russia, but we have tensions with Nabucco. What do you see as the future? We had (Energy) Comm­issioner(Andris) Piebalgs yesterday tell us that South Stream is a more long-term project.

Well our favorite project is not just South Stream, but also the northern stream and some other projects. Our favorite project is United Energy Systems Europe with united Europe of the European Union. And we believe strongly on that cooperation, and you know when a country invests in a pipeline it is for sure for a long term. It is a long-term project, because if you have a pipeline, you need to exploit it, so it brings back money, which has been invested in that project. So that means that if we have a pipeline connecting Russia and other European countries, this pipeline will always be in use. It will be full with oil or with gas, if we speak about gas pipelines, no problems with that. We have had some problems with the transit countries, and we are unhappy about having such types of problems, and this is why we now try to build, build another type of pipelines with as few transit countries as possible, so that we have as few transit problems as possible, and Russia, as a partner, is as reliable as always.

And now the main transit problem has been of course with Ukraine in the past few years. Have we reached the point where we won’t have any problems in the short, near future?

We have now arranged our cooperation with Ukraine in a legal manner, on a basis of contracts and other agreements, which does function. And as long as Ukraine is capable to pay and we do not ask for payments in advance, we are ready to deliver gas and take payments afterwards, when this gas has been already sold to consumers by Ukrainian authorities or companies and they believe that this a comfortable format for our cooperation for both parties, as long as Ukraine is capable to pay, we will not face any crises any longer

The European Union has gone ahead and ratified the Lisbon treaty, making it the more political union. How is this going to affect Russia – EU relations?

We will have to see. I hope that it will be for the better for relations between Russian and the European Union, as well I hope that countries which deliberately try to create problems in relations between European Union and Russia, we will have less, fewer opportunities for that. I hope we will have the consolidated European Union as predictable and transparent partner for Russia, in comparison with what we have had before, and I hope that our cooperation, our dialogue on projects like energy security, like trade, like investments, will speed up and I hope that we will be able to finalize the agreement between Russia and the European Union in the nearest future.

Have you been in contact with Baroness Ashton as of yet?

No I have not been in contact with Baroness Ashton yet, but I know that she has her own opinion how relations with Russia should be developed, and I believe that this opinion coincides with the opinion of people in Russia who want to have strategic partnership with the European Union, so I hope that we will have very good communication with Baroness Ashton.

Konstantin Kosachev is Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation