The European Union should create a level playing field among the various projects to bring gas to the continent along new routes, the head of the Russian-backed South Stream pipeline has urged.

Marcel Kramer said Brussels should recognise South Stream’s potential contribution to greater gas supply route diversity and that the project deserved to be treated on a par with the other EU-backed projects.

Kramer also forcefully rejected critics’ claims that one of South Streams’s primary purposes was to frustrate Nabucco, a rival gas project backed by €200m in EU funding that hopes to transport gas from the Caspian basin to Europe.

“We are not asking for subsidies. But when it comes to access to financing, permitting and regulatory processes ... it would be important to know that the approach by the European authorities is non-discriminatory for the two projects,” said Mr Kramer.

“If you say, well the only reason [for South Stream] is that there are certain people who want to frustrate Nabucco then I would say this is definitely not true. Besides, it would mean that if Nabucco comes to a halt we will also give up – that is not how it works, we are not competing projects.”

He insisted that economics would determine whether the pipeline was constructed, not political factors as some critics have claimed.

“You couldn’t build a decent business case for South Stream just on the rationale ... of blocking or frustrating Nabucco – that’s totally unrealistic ... It would imply that if Nabucco wasn’t there we would stop South Stream – that’s unthinkable,” he said.

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