Poland-Slovakia gas pipeline ensures increased security

A natural gas pipeline between Poland and Slovakia, inaugurated on Friday, proves that north-south connections can increase security, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, has said.

The Poland-Slovakia interconnector is a two-way high-pressure natural gas pipeline connecting the national system gas node in Strachocina (southeastern Poland) with the Slovak node in Velke Kapusany on the border with Ukraine, where the ‘Braterstwo’ (‘Brotherhood’) gas pipeline runs – one of the export routes of Russian gas to the west via Ukraine.

The connector is 61 km long on the Polish side and 106 km on the Slovak side with a capacity of 5.7 billion cubic metres (bcm) on the Polish side and 4.7 bcm in Slovakia.

Speaking at the pipeline’s opening ceremony in Strachocina, Morawiecki said: “The gas pipeline between Poland and Slovakia is proof that north-south connections can strengthen security between our countries. It is also a Three Seas investment, of the Central Europe states, which are constructing their security in this way.”

The Three Seas initiative is a project to enhance transport and energy infrastructural connections between the 12 countries lying between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas.

“This is a pipeline of peace, it is a pipeline of security, in opposition to what has been built by Germany and Russia, with the support of other countries, that is Nord Stream I and II,” Morawiecki added.

“As we see they were gas pipelines of war, pipelines that led not only to destabilisation in Europe but to what we are facing today,” Morawiecki said.

The prime minister pointed out that the investment paved the way for gas to be supplied to the region from “practically every direction in the world.”