New route to the EU is opened for Gazprom: Slovakia is ready to join Turkish Stream

Slovakia, which after the refusal of Russia to pump gas through the Ukraine in 2019 may be left without transit volumes, has figured out how to avoid it. The country offers Gazprom to make its traffic system project with Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania a part of Turkish Stream. In this case, Slovakia will be able to save at least some of the current pumping volume through its territory. Moscow promised to consider such an option, but experts believe it is quite feasible.

One of the key issues of the yesterday's negotiations between of the Prime Ministers Dmitry Medvedev and Robert Fico was a question of the fate of Bratislava’s income from the transit of Russian gas to Europe. Mr. Fico acknowledged the threat of their loss as a result of the construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline bypassing the Ukraine and offered his own version - the merger of the project with the pipeline system of Eastring, which is created by Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. The Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said to the Kommersant that "energy map of Europe is now redrawn and Slovakia plays an important role in this process as an important transit country". Dmitry Medvedev has promised to consider the idea of ​​Robert Fico, added that Moscow "is ready to evaluate what is offered, as facilities, as funding that will be required".