The Course of South Stream

... President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara, at the height of the confrontation with the West over the crisis in Ukraine. The European Union stands to lose the most from the move. By itself, however, redirecting the pipeline through Turkey rather than Bulgaria does not strengthen Russia’s position on the European gas market from a strategic point of view. Rather, abandoning the South Stream project should be a good reason to start a new chapter in energy cooperation between Europe and Russia. The decision on South Stream can easily be viewed as a reaction to Western sanctions....