Vladimir Putin and Borut Pahor sign agreement on South Stream.
The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met the Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor on Saturday. The meeting, unlike the Russia-Slovenia football match, ended in a mutually beneficial draw. Kommersant's Andrei Kolesnikov reports from Novo-Ogaryovo how the Prime Ministers settled their accounts ahead of the football teams.
A ball game on Saturday began before the Russian and Slovenian football teams appeared on the pitch at Luzhniki Stadium. In the early afternoon the Prime Ministers of Russia and Slovenia met at Novo-Ogaryovo.
At first glance their meeting on the day of the football match to decide which team would go to the world championship in South Africa looked like a lucky coincidence (especially for the Slovenian Prime Minister),but that was not really the case.
According to Kommersant's information, Gazprom had conducted difficult negotiations with Slovenia for several months, urging that country to join South Stream. In the end the Slovenians made the decision in principle, but the date and venue of the signing had not been agreed. This happened to be the time when the draw for the playoffs was conducted. When the results became known, the Slovenians called Moscow and said that Borut Pahor attached such great importance to the agreement that he would like to come to Moscow to sign it as soon as possible. November 14 would do nicely. It was his free day.
This prompted the question: considering how eager the Slovenian Prime Minister was to come on that particular day and sign the particular agreement, was it worth making a rush and signing the document before the decisive football match? Perhaps it would have been better to wait, not until the evening of November 14 but until November 18 (when the return match was to be held in Maribor)? In the meantime a framework agreement of some sort could have been signed in Moscow, the kind of agreement that leaves more questions than answers.
I am sure these were the questions asked by many fans both in Slovenia and in Russia on their way to see the match. As it turned out, Borut Pahor was also asking himself this question. Otherwise he wouldn't have told Vladimir Putin that the agreement had to be signed before Slovenia won the match and relations between Russia and Slovenia soured. ("We shall see..." Putin shot back enigmatically.)
Under the agreement the Slovenian section of South Stream will be built and operated by a joint venture being created by Gazprom and the Slovenian Geoplin plinovodi (according to Kommersant's information, it's a fifty-fifty project). The exact route and capacity of the section will be determined after feasibility studies are completed.
Vladimir Putin said that with this agreement South Stream becomes a transnational energy project (all the formal grounds for this are in place: Gazprom now has agreements with all the four countries through which South Stream will pass: Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Greece).
The Slovenian interpreter insisted on referring to Russia as the RSFSR. True, she did not refer to Slovenia as SFRY. The Slovenian Prime Minister, after explaining to Vladimir Putin why "Slovenia, a small country, is important for the RSFSR (it is a member of the EU and the Schengen zone), stressed that the leader of the Libyan revolution, Muamar Kaddafi had advised him to sign this agreement to their mutual benefit. (I could visualize Muamar Kaddafi telling Borut Pahor that one had to be careful with these Russians: at the time you sign up everything seems to be normal but back home when you read it more attentively you find that once again you are on the short end of the bargain.)
"The leader of the Libyan revolution is an experienced man," Vladimir Putin confirmed (my hand itches to add: "without batting an eyelash"). "He is a great expert on economics (Putin's face still wore a deadpan expression - A.K.). I think in future we could work in tripartite format."
"Today football is the main thing," Vladimir Putin admitted. "But in between things we are signing an agreement on South Stream..."
Taking the cue, the Slovenian Prime Minister said, "I suggest that you are resigned to our victory in the match today."
This was the second time he raised the topic.
"Just listen to him," the Russian Prime Minister was provoked."We have a saying: ‘There is many a slip twixt cup and lip.'"
At the end of the conversation he turned to the Slovenian Prime Minister and said what to me was a tell-tale phrase:
"Thank you and your team."
Surely he was not referring to the Slovenian negotiators on South Stream.
Judging from the outcome of the match (2:1 in Russia's favour) the negotiations were successful. Somehow I can't bring myself to accuse the Slovenian who hammered the ball into our net. He couldn't help himself. One can have sympathy with him.
He will know better next time.