May 24 (SeeNews) - The European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, said on Thursday that Russia's Gazprom cannot seek any damages from its Bulgarian partners following the termination of the South Stream gas pipeline project.
Gazprom may have used its market position in gas supply in Bulgaria to obtain favourable treatment concerning gas infrastructure, Vestager said in a statement posted on the website of the European Commission.
In December 2014, Russia abandoned - over objections from the European Commission - its plans to build the South Stream gas pipeline designed to carry Russian gas under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and from there to central and southern Europe but said it is ready to build another pipeline system to Turkey instead (TurkStream).
The EC has adopted a decision imposing on Gazprom a set of obligations to significantly change the way the company operates in Central and Eastern European gas markets and to the benefit of millions of European consumers who rely on gas to heat their homes and cook their food, Vestager said.
The Commission said in a statement on Thursday it has imposed binding obligations on Gazprom to enable the free flow of gas at competitive prices in Central and Eastern European gas markets, including the removal of any restrictions placed on customers to re-sell gas cross-border and to give an effective tool to customers to make sure their gas price reflects the price level in competitive Western European gas markets.
"Gazprom must give customers an option to change where they want their gas delivered to. Customers that bought gas, originally for delivery to Hungary, Poland or Slovakia, can have all or part of it delivered to Bulgaria or the Baltic States instead. Gazprom must offer these swaps in both directions for a fixed transparent fee," Vestager said.
This means that gas can flow to and from the isolated markets as if the gas interconnectors existed already. It will allow Gazprom's customers to seek new business opportunities even before interconnectors become available, to the benefit of consumers and businesses in Bulgaria and the Baltic States, she added.
"One of our competition concerns was that Gazprom was charging higher prices in five countries, namely Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland," Vestager noted.
In 2015, the Commission sent Gazprom a statement of objections setting out competition concerns that Gazprom pursued an overall strategy in its long-term contracts with customers to partition gas markets. According to the Commission, this happened in eight member states – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. This strategy may have enabled Gazprom to charge higher gas prices in five of these member states, the Commission said.
Bulgaria is heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies. The country imports almost all the gas it needs to cover its domestic needs via a pipeline from Ukraine through Romania.