Another turn! German-Russian Gas Pipeline Heads for Estonia

A controversial pipeline to carry Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany could run through Estonian waters, an official from the consortium behind the project said on Friday, DPA reports. The pipeline has been the subject of bitter dispute in the Baltic region ever since it was first proposed in 2005. Many of the states bordering the Baltic have argued that it could disturb stores of chemical weapons dumped in the sea after World War Two.
But the planned pipeline could equally meet with political opposition. If completed, it would create separate routes for Russia to supply gas to Eastern and Western Europe.
As a result, the EU's Eastern European member states have complained that it would allow Russia to cut off their gas supplies - as it did to Ukraine in January 2006 - without affecting supplies to its richer Western clients.
The fact that the project - owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom and German firms E.ON and BASF - was negotiated by the two states without consulting the countries between them created great ill-will in former Soviet satellites such as Poland and the Baltics.
The Ukrainian gas crisis heightened fears that Moscow would be willing to use its energy resources to exert political pressure in any disputes with its former satellites.