PRAGUE (AFP)--The European Union opened talks with leaders from
the Caspian sea region and beyond in Prague Friday to breathe some
life into the ambitious Nabucco pipeline project designed to take
non-Russian gas to Europe.
The Southern Corridor project discussed under the Czech E.U.
presidency is meant above all to reduce Europe's dependence on
Russian resources through cooperation with Caspian, Central Asian
and Middle East countries.
"The E.U. and the countries of the 'new Silk Road' are launching
a new cooperation which could lead to more diversification of
energy resouces and cooperation in the energy sector," said Czech
deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra.
"We need to bring consuming countries like the E.U. and
supplying countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and other transit
countries like Turkey together," he told reporters before the
meeting.
The project centers above all on the 3,300-kilometer, EUR7.9
billion pipeline between Turkey and Austria, which it is hoped will
start pumping gas to Europe by 2014.
Its goal is to bypass Russia and Ukraine, whose dispute over gas
prices halted supplies to Europe in January, leaving thousands of
households without heating in the middle of a severe winter.
In a draft statement seen by AFP, the E.U. along with
Azerbaijan, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan
and Uzbekistan agreed that the E.U. and Turkey should hammer out a
deal on Nabucco "as quickly as possible (and) to sign it by June
2009."
Turkey, which hoped to join the E.U., threatened in January to
block Nabucco, citing a lack of progress in its talks on E.U.
accession, but Thursday it voiced full support to the project.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul was in Prague for the
meeting.
All the other attending countries were represented by heads of
state or ministers, with the exception of Iraq which has failed to
show up, according to the official guest list.
The Nabucco project also involves funding from a consortium of
private companies comprising Germany's RWE AG (RWE.XE), Austria's
OMV AG (OMV.VI), Hungary's MOL Nyrt (MOL.BU), Transgaz SA of
Romania, Bulgargaz of Bulgaria and Botas of Turkey.
The draft joint statement also called for progress on ITGI, a
Turkish-Greek gas pipeline taking gas to Italy, and for an
extension of an oil transport system between Kazakhstan and
Azerbaijan that "could be developed in the Mediterranean and the
Black Sea region."
The Southern Corridor also seeks to boost transport links with
Turkey and the South Caucasus and "beyond to Central Asia along the
Southern corridor, including connections to the Middle East."
As well, the statement urges the E.U. to sign deals on energy
with Iraq and Egypt and "agree on specific projects in developing
Egypt's gas reserves and export potential for the E.U."