Tag: Azerbaijan

The recent session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly was a success, bringing together MEPs and their counterparts from Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Bulgarian MEP Evgeni Kirilov tells EurActiv.

Nabucco West and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the two companies competing for Azerbaijani gas projects, have issued simultaneous statements today (29 March) that they have submitted the final package supporting their bids. The Shah Deniz consortium will chose between the two in June.

Over the last year, Moldova and Georgia have cooperated “quite well” with the EU, under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), while Ukraine, which used to be the front-runner, is lagging behind, according to reports to be published today (20 March).

Officials from Azerbaijan and Armenia met in Paris yesterday (28 January) for talks over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was the cause of a war that killed about 30,000 people in the early 1990s. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia are part of the EU’s Eastern Partnership.

At least three explosions severed Turkish pipelines carrying natural gas from Iran and Azerbaijan, media reported on Friday (19 October). Turkey is seen as a key transit country for supplying Europe.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has an enormous impact on both countries economically, socially, as well as on the quality of democracy and the respect for individual and collective freedoms. It is also shocking how little one side knows about the other, and how much of the dispute is based on propaganda-induced prejudices, writes Diogo Pinto.

Military tensions have grown in recent weeks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Charles Tannock argues that the EU should take steps to diffuse the situation.

In a sign of growing tensions over the frozen conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia announced it would pull out of the 2012 Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijan. The show, seen by some as a triumph of musical kitsch, was popular in Western Europe in the 1970s and '80s, and is now a big hype in Eastern Europe.

A smaller, cheaper alternative to the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline could be the best choice to carry Caspian natural gas to Europe, though Nabucco retains US political support, Washington's special envoy for Eurasian energy said in Baku. 

Competitors in the race to give life to the 'Southern gas corridor,' aimed at supplying Europe with non-Russian gas sources, have all lodged bids to obtain the 10 billion cubic meters per year which will be available from the offshore Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan.

The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has submitted "99% of the applications needed for its construction," according to a company source, apparently establishing the project as a frontrunner in the race for Azeri gas ahead a 1 October deadline for the submission of transportation offers to the consortium exploiting the Shah Deniz II gas field.

The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Plinacro Ltd., a natural gas transmission system operator in Croatia, signed an agreement on Friday (25 February) providing for a future extension of the planned gas pipeline to Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia.

Russia's growing oil exports to Asia and the Baltic have unsettled European traders and refiners, who fear shortages on the Black Sea and in Central Europe should Russian output stall or decline.

The gas pipeline consortium that wins a deal to buy 10 billion cubic metres of Azeri gas next April will become the backbone of the Southern Gas Corridor, Kjetil Tungland, managing director of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Several pipeline projects are competing with one another to bring to life the southern gas corridor – a vague blueprint to supply Europe with gas from the Caspian and the Middle East. EurActiv takes a look at the various European initiatives, including their common competitor: Russia's South Stream project.

Two EU members, Romania and Hungary, have joined forces with Azerbaijan and Georgia around a project to ship liquefied Azeri gas to their region. Supporters argue that the project could be implemented quickly, but critics point to high costs and vulnerability.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday (4 July) it was a US priority to help Armenia and Azerbaijan settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and urged them to refrain from violence over the separatist region.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on a visit to Azerbaijan today (17 May), is due to sign a EU-backed gas deal that is expected to unlock Azeri gas reserves for the West and eventually trim Europe's energy dependence on Russia, the press in the region reports.

The European Union yesterday (7 May) launched a plan to foster closer political and economic ties with six former Soviet republics, while attempting to persuade Russia that it is not trying to muscle in on its sphere of influence.

Gazprom and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan last week signed a memorandum of understanding for long-term supplies of Central Asian gas to Russia at market prices, further undermining the EU's favoured Nabucco pipeline, analysts said.

The Georgia-Russia crisis offers Turkey "a unique chance to bolster its regional clout, check Russian and Iranian influence and help secure the flow of Western-bound oil and natural gas from former Soviet Central Asia and Azerbaijan," writes Amberin Zaman in an August analysis for the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Following a two-day debate, the parliament of Cyprus has approved the EU Constitution. The next scheduled vote on the document comes with a referendum in Luxembourg on 10 July.