BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Hungary says it will go ahead and build its part of Gazprom’s South Stream gas pipeline that bypasses Ukraine to supply Europe, despite U.S. and EU objections to the project.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Tuesday in Serbia that “those who say we shouldn’t build South Stream should make an alternative proposal about how we could live without energy.”
Orban added that “we are going to build the South Stream.”
His comments underscore divisions within the EU over the trans-European pipeline. The standoff over Ukraine has renewed calls for the 28-nation bloc to rethink its energy policies to make it less reliant on Russia.
Bulgaria last month had to freeze its South Stream construction work under orders from EU Commission, which said the country breached EU competition rules.
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