The South Stream pipeline project is expected to accelerate after the EU has backpedalled on its tough demands in the face of unruly Ukraine, says Vedomosti.

      Moscow and Brussels are prepared to work together towards a solution that would no longer require a revision of state-level treaties with transit countries, as was previously demanded.

      The statement was made by the representatives of the Russian Energy Ministry and the European Commissioner for Energy, Guenther Oettinger after bilateral talks in Moscow on Friday.

      The move comes after Ukraine has turned down the Association Agreement with the EU.

      Earlier, Brussels officials lashed out at the South Stream project, set to bypass Ukraine, for not complying with the Third Energy Package and demanded that transit countries, including Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia revise or cancel their agreements with Russia, a requirement they refused to meet.

      South Stream is a pipeline project with an annual throughput capacity of 3 billion cubic meters that would run under the Black Sea to Europe. Similar to Nord Stream that has already been launched, it was designed to remove unreliable Ukraine out of the gas supplies equation.

      Unlike Vedomosti, Ukrainian news agency LigaBiznesInform is not that optimistic. According to it, the negotiations with European Commissioner for Energy Guenther Oettinger were very brief and didn’t yield any results.

      The next possible round of talks on South Stream could take place on January 28, 2013 in Brussels at the Russia-EU summit. Many experts have been skeptical about any significant progress after a bitter war over Ukraine’s economic future.