Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger

Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister, said that Serbia was preserving vital national interests with regard to the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline in cooperation with Russia.

"Serbia will protect its interests, but we are not the major player and we do not get to decide on the most important issues," Vucic said on Wednesday.

BRUSSELS - The European Union is not considering freezing South Stream but the construction of this pipeline is not a priority, a European Commission (EC) official has told Tanjug in Brussels.