HELSINKI (AP) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says a new natural gas pipeline planned to stretch from Russia to Germany "looks like a fairly bad deal" for Europe because it increases its energy dependency on Moscow.

Biden says that to lock Europe "into greater reliance on Russia ... will fundamentally destabilize Ukraine," but stressed that the European Union leaders must make their own decisions on the issue.

Russian energy company Gazprom and the EU, which imports a third of its natural gas from Russia, agreed last year on the new pipeline to run parallel to an existing one that runs under the Baltic Sea.

Biden spoke Thursday at a news conference in the Swedish capital Stockholm after talks with Swedish Prime Minister Stephan Lofven.