Greece and Hungary sign up to Russia gas pipeline

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  The Budapest meeting comes amid Russian attempts to split the EU over Ukraine (Photo: Axel Buhrmann)

By ANDREW RETTMAN 

BRUSSELS, TODAY, 09:28

Greece and Hungary have endorsed plans to build a new Russian gas pipeline in the latest blow to EU unity over the Ukraine crisis.

Their foreign ministers, Nikos Kotzias and Peter Szijjarto, added their names to a declaration on the “Turkish Stream” project signed in Budapest on Tuesday (7 April) with counterparts from Serbia, Macedonia, and Turkey.

The text says they “expressed … support to create a commercially viable option of route and source diversification for delivering natural gas from the Republic of Turkey through the territories of our countries to the countries of Central and South Eastern Europe”.

It calls for the EU to help fund related infrastructure, claiming that the pipeline “would … make a significant contribution to the overall energy security of Europe and must therefore be a common responsibility of the European Union”.

Watchtowers on Poland-Russia border 'not linked' to Ukraine conflict

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  Kaliningrad is one of Russia's poorest regions (Photo: Christoph)

By ANDREW RETTMAN 

BRUSSELS, 7. APR, 09:25

Poland says its plan to build watchtowers on its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is not linked to the Ukraine crisis.

Joanna Rokicka, a spokeswoman for the Polish Border Guard, told EUobserver on Tuesday (7 April) that the scheme, which is part-funded by the European Commission, was agreed “quite some time ago, before the events in Ukraine”.

“We are building the towers purely for migration-control purposes. It’s not designed to prevent any situation linked to the current crisis in Ukraine”.