(dpa) - Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus has restated his opposition to plans to build a gas pipeline linking Germany directly to Russia under the Baltic Sea, in an interview published in Germany Monday.
The Nord Stream project, for which construction has started on the overland section in Russia, was "absolutely unacceptable" from an environmental standpoint, Adamkus told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.
He also queried the economic viability of the project, saying there were cheaper and safer overland alternatives to pipe gas from the Yuzhno-Russkoye field to Vyborg on the coast, then under the sea to Greifswald in northern Germany.
Adamkus said that if Germany and Russia could be induced to change their minds, "we would achieve something positive for all on the Baltic littoral."
The outspoken Lithuanian president was particularly critical of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, accusing him of conducting negotiations in secrecy with the Russian side during his chancellorship, which ended in the autumn of 2005.
This contradicted the spirit of the European Union, Adamkus said, adding that there had been a marked shift for the better under Schroeder's successor, Angela Merkel.
The Nord Stream deal was agreed in the weeks before Schroeder stepped down in November 2005 after losing the September elections. Schroeder subsequently accepted a post with Nord Stream, in which the state-owned Russian gas monopoly Gazprom owns a majority stake.