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Jose Manuel Barroso: â€˜The construction of the Southern Gas Corridor from Azerbaijan to Europe has been our common priority in the energy sector in the last yearsâ€™

13 June 2014 13:17 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Anakhanum Hidoyatova – APA. APA’s interview with President of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso

- In the light of events in Ukraine, there was an offer to stop "South Stream” project, do you think it is possible, how would you comment this offer?

- The South Stream as any other energy project in the European Union needs to comply 100% with European rules on energy, competition, public procurement and so on. This was also emphasized in the recently adopted European Energy Security Strategy which calls for the South Stream project to be in full compliance with EU legislation. The European Commission is not per se against the South Stream project as such and has said it on many occasions. At the same time, this project is not a priority project as it does not diversify the sources of gas supply for Europe. The European Commission has raised doubts about the compatibility of the regulatory and organizational set-up of the South Stream project and related IGAs with EU law and expressed this to Member States concerned.

- How do you estimate realization of Azerbaijan-EU common energy projects, are there any new ideas, can more agreements be signed between two sides?

- After the successful completion of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in 2005, the construction of the Southern Gas Corridor from Azerbaijan to Europe has been our common priority in the energy sector in the last years. President Aliyev and myself have underlined this commitment when we signed – in January 2011 in Baku – the Joint Declaration on the Southern Gas Corridor. With the Final Investment Decision taken by the members of the Shah Deniz II Consortium in December 2013, the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor is being realized and will deliver at least 10bcm of gas from Azerbaijan to Europe before 2020.

Europe and Azerbaijan will continue to work very closely together in the coming years to increase the volumes along the Southern Gas Corridor and expand its infrastructure, including through the ongoing negotiations on the Trans-Caspian Pipeline with Turkmenistan. The European Union has also been supporting the expansion of electricity trade between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, with financial and technical assistance. In the context of the Memorandum of Understanding on Energy Cooperation signed in 2006, we will continue to assist Azerbaijan in the necessary reforms of its energy sector and identify further common infrastructure priorities for the future.

- What are the main problems of Azerbaijan on the way of becoming a WTO member?

- The EU strongly supports Azerbaijan's accession to the WTO. This can contribute to Azerbaijan’s goal of diversifying its economy and a predictable and rules based business environment.

Over the last two years, Azerbaijan has made good progress in its WTO accession process, joining the WTO Information Technology Agreement and tabling offers on tariff reduction and on the liberalisation of trade in services constitute a good basis for entering into the final steps of the market access negotiations. In these negotiations Azerbaijan still needs to address some issues related with agricultural and industrial goods, export duties on critical raw materials and access to its market in some services sectors which are not yet open to foreign competition.

I hope that the currently revived momentum in Azerbaijan's WTO accession process can be maintained and that Azerbaijan will soon be able to finalise its negotiations to accede to the WTO.