Portfolio.hu: South Stream is dead. Should Hungary mourn or laugh?

To the surprise of many, Vladimir Putin announced recently that the South Stream would not be built. The pipeline’s aim was to deliver Russian natural gas to Austria through the Black Sea, through Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary. The announcement raises several important questions for Central and Eastern Europe and Hungary, in particular; in this post we try answer some of them. 

The cancelation should not come as a surprise 

Putin blamed the stubbornness of the EU, as it did not support building the South Stream pipeline according to his taste (not giving access to other parties to the pipeline). Still, it seems the real blow for the project was the oil price decline: Russia is highly dependent on oil revenues, and as the price of oil plummeted by 40%, its finances are in ruins. (In fact we wrote a post on this before Putin’s announcement, where we also raised doubts regarding South Stream.) MORE

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