More funding for Nabucco, argues Brown
Posted by meb at September 2nd, 2008
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has publicly urged additional funding to construct the Nabucco pipeline from the Caspian Sea, to carry gas through Turkey to the West. His thoughts were outlined in an article published in the Sunday Observer.
Brown, prior to yesterday’s meeting of European heads of state, called upon leaders to discuss the crisis in Georgia and said the West should not be dependent upon Russia for energy supplies. In the article, entitled, “This is how we will stand up to Russia’s naked aggression,” Brown argued that the EU must now speed up work on creating a single European market for gas and electricity as “a collective defense to secure our energy supplies and try to strike collective deals with Russia on energy supplies.” Further, he warned President Dmitry Medvedev to expect a “determined”’ response to the invasion of Georgia.
“No nation can be allowed to exert an energy stranglehold over Europe,” he said, promising urgent action to prevent Britain from “sleepwalking into an energy dependence on less stable or reliable partners”, including seeking out alternative suppliers of gas and oil, as well as pushing ahead with plans for new nuclear plants and alternative fuels.
“The Prime Minister’s intervention reflects fears that the territorial conflict over South Ossetia risks spilling into an energy war, with Russia using its vast supplies of oil and gas – on which many European countries depend – to blackmail the West into submission,” wrote the Observer, reflecting on Brown’s remarks.
Some analysts had suggested that the Nabucco pipeline project, a planned natural gas pipeline that will transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, could be put in jeopardy by the recent conflict in Georgia. Others, on the other hand, argued that the conflict might boost Turkey’s position as a transit energy hub, under the condition that the country provided security guarantees for the pipelines.
source: Turkish Daily News
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