Newspaper Report on Nord Stream Not Connected With Research – Scientist

TALLINN. Aug 1 (Interfax) – Estonian Academician Endel Lippmaa, who is directing research into the possibility of laying the Nord Stream pipeline in Estonian territorial waters, has spoken out in protest against the publication of reports in the mass media that the Academy of Sciences has rejected this project.

Lippmaa said in a TV interview that the scientists have not yet finished their evaluation. “State structures supplied incomplete information to the press, and the journalist, it seems, made up the rest and distorted the meaning,” he said.

“The Academy of Science considers that the article in the Postimees newspaper on the Nord Stream pipeline has nothing in common with the research, and the article arose from a leak of information from state structures,” he said.

The newspaper Postimees reported on Wednesday that the Academy of Science, at the request of the Estonian Foreign Ministry, reviewed an application from Russian-German company Nord Stream to change the route of the pipeline, and rejected the plan.

According to report, the scientists said that the route of the gas pipeline had been established, and Estonia had no reason to allow research be carried out in its territorial waters and economic zone.

In addition, according to the report, Russia “without affecting gas supplies to Central Europe, could cut off gas supplies to its near neighbors.”

Nord Stream applied to the Estonian government in May with a request to carry out research into the possibility of paying the Nord Stream pipeline in its economic zone, where the seabed is deeper and more even than in Finnish waters, through which it was earlier planned to build the pipeline.

The government said that it would give a response within the four months allocated by law, after a scientific review had been carried out.

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