BERLIN (Reuters) - Europe's Energy Commissioner said talks on the Russian South Stream gas pipeline planned by Gazprom are faltering, partly due to the Ukraine crisis, but will continue when Russia sticks to international law, a German newspaper said.
Progress is stalled because Russia is not accepting European regulations in the energy sector and because "the crisis in Ukraine overlies everything", Guenther Oettinger said in an advance extract of an article due to be published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Sunday.
"We'll continue discussions if the Russian partners comply with international law again and are prepared to cooperate constructively on the basis of our energy law," he said.
He said controversial points of the South Stream pipeline, which Russia wants to build across the Black Sea to bypass gas transit nation Ukraine, were being discussed at the working level.
"In the current situation with civil war-like circumstances and in the absence of Moscow recognising the government in Kiev, we certainly won't reach a political conclusion of our negotiations," Oettinger said.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Gunna Dickson)