Incident

Home page

Incident

EU says with no Turkey thereâ€™s no Nabucco

14 February 2008 10:52 (UTC +04:00)

The coordinator of the Nabucco pipeline scheme, former Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias van Aartsen is visiting Ankara on the heels of the selection of German utility as the sixth partner in the project, which is a major plank in the EUâ€™s policy to ease dependence on Russian gas.
"The visit to Turkey is the EU trying to send a signal that the Nabucco is still being taken seriously, but that there are still some major problems, and support (for the project) is very important," said Gareth Winrow, professor of international relations at Bilgi University and an expert on energy security.
Political will is now seen as crucial for the Nabucco consortium, made up mostly of the pipelineâ€™s transit states, as it tries to secure natural gas around the geopolitically thorny post-Soviet Caspian region, traditionally aligned with Russia.
Ankara has gone against the grain by pressing for the inclusion of Iranian gas in the pipeline, despite EU opposition.
"Turkey is one of the partners of the (Nabucco) consortium, and with no Turkey thereâ€™s no Nabucco ... but there is a difference over Iran coming into the deal," European Commission spokesman Ferran Taradellas Espuny told Reuters.
Despite pressure from the United States to call off the deal and Iranâ€™s frequent gas cuts to Turkey, Ankara has said it will push ahead and invest $3.5 billion to develop gas fields in its eastern neighbour and sell the gas to Europe.
That position, which analysts say decreases Nabuccoâ€™s clout at the bargaining table with Caspian producers, is being used to bend European will on issues including higher transit fees on Nabucco gas transiting Turkey, as well as its EU bid.
"Turkey is trying to use its position with added inflows of gas coming into the country (from Iran) to strengthen its position at the bargaining table with Europe," said Manouchehr Takin, an analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies.
The trip will also touch on the participation of Gaz de France in the project, which Turkey has vocally opposed, after the French National Assembly voted to make it a crime to deny the killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 was genocide.
"On the trip van Aartsen is going to try to get Turkey to come on board to get Gaz de France into the partnership," said David Niles, an analyst at Datamonitor in London.
RWE was chosen as the sixth partner after Turkey threw its support behind the company, but the need for investment may mean a seventh partner, a possibility Nabucco officials have mentioned before.
The 4.6 billion euro ($6.7 billion) project has already seen a number of delays, and last month the consortium said the final date for the projectâ€™s completion had been pushed back a year.
"Weâ€™ve had to reschedule a bit in 2009 and 2010. The final date for the project will be 2013," said Christian Dolezal, spokesman for the Nabucco project.
Supplies coming from Azerbaijan, which has signed an agreement with Europe for the use of its gas in the project, have their own timeline, and Europe is looking to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to supplement Azeri supplies. /APA/