DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, July 17 (UPI) -- The Nabucco pipeline has political consequences as Turkey gains an advantage with the European Union while Europe scrambles for friends in the energy sector.
The European Union in a report on energy security said gas represents more than 25 percent of the energy supply for Europe. By 2020, Europe expects to import 80 percent of its energy needs.
Europe has pushed hard to diversify an energy market largely dependent on Russian gas. A gas dispute between Moscow and Kiev, however, left Europe in the cold for weeks as 80 percent of all Russian gas supplies to Europe moves through Ukrainian territory.
Europe hopes to ease that dependency with its $10.3 billion Nabucco gas pipeline, which sidelines Russia as a regional gas supplier.
Francis Matthew, editor at large for Gulf News, writes that Europe can no longer afford to suffer under Russian political blackmail in the energy sector and needs Nabucco for that effort.
Meanwhile, the project represents a "major political coup for Turkey," as Ankara lobbies for accession to the European Union despite the consternation of many of its member states. Europe, for its part, is now making friends in places where its political sphere was once largely non-existent, Matthew writes.
"The political power of a pipeline like Nabucco means that all over the wide region of the Middle East and Central Asia, governments and state-owned oil companies suddenly have the opportunity of dealing directly with the European Union, on a commercial matter that is also deeply political," Matthew concludes.
