BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top official is not yet ready to take “nyet” for an answer on a natural gas pipeline from Russia.
The South Stream pipeline crossing southeastern Europe could still be completed, despite the stated intention of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to abandon the project, according to Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission.
The comments by Mr. Juncker, at a news conference here on Thursday, indicated that the bloc was intent on keeping at least the idea of the South Stream project alive — despite the European Union’s sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, and despite the Europeans’ longstanding skepticism about a pipeline that could extend the region’s heavy reliance on Russian energy.
“South Stream can be built,” Mr. Juncker said. But, he added, “the ball is in the court of Russia.”
Mr. Juncker’s comments — as surprising in some respects as Mr. Putin’s sudden decision to reroute the pipeline — were the latest twist in a project that has became a geopolitical tug of war between Brussels and Moscow.
Some countries in the European Union, like Hungary, have taken a favorable view of South Stream, seeing the project as a way to ensure more secure supplies of gas for domestic use. Hungary is in southeastern Europe, a region badly affected by midwinter cuts in supply because of pricing disputes between Russia and Ukraine.
Serbia, which is seeking to join the European Union, sees South Stream as a way to earn money from gas transit fees and to bolster its construction industry.
But the European Commission, the union’s executive body, has long sought to stop Russia from using the pipeline as a way to enable Gazprom, the giant Russian gas exporter, to maintain its tight grip on some European energy markets. The commission wants those markets open to greater competition as a condition for the construction of South Stream.
Mr. Juncker said nothing on Thursday that might break the deadlock over one of the big sticking points for Moscow: the insistence by the European authorities that if the pipeline were built, other gas suppliers would have to have access to it.
Russia and Gazprom fiercely oppose sharing the pipeline, and on Monday,Mr. Putin announced that Russia would reroute it to Turkey.
A Russian official reiterated that intention on Thursday.
“In my view, the decision is final,” said Alexander Novak, the Russian energy minister, according to Russian news reports. “Today, we’re working on the construction of the pipeline by another route.”
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