KIEV, March 12 - A tripartite consortium of Ukraine, Russia and the European Union to modernize Ukrainian gas pipelines would be better than a bilateral project without Europe, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Kliuyev answered an Investgazeta question on Monday.

"I will give as an example the Odessa-Brody crude pipeline It started up in an adverse mode. If we had done everything right before the construction started and had formed a consortium or a joint venture with states or companies possessing raw materials and transit infrastructure - Ukraine - and companies consuming these raw materials, the pipeline would have been efficient. Now we have a pipeline that starts nowhere and goes nowhere," he said.