Brussels, 27/01/2009 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in Budapest on 27 January in the context of the conference organised by the Hungarian authorities and attended by the EIB and EBRD, the governmental representatives of the six countries taking part in the project (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Turkey) and the supplier and transit countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkmenistan) as well as the EU confirmed their commitment in favour of the future Nabucco gas pipeline, which is to carry gas from Central Asia to Austria via Georgia and Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, but circumventing Russia.
In a video message, José Manuel Barroso restated the European Commission's support for a project that is vital for diversifying supplies to Europe, which is “vulnerable” when it comes to energy supply security. Hosting the meeting, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany called on the EU to take part in the funding of the project, something that private banks balk at, by unblocking €200-300 million in coming weeks to finally launch construction of the gas pipeline. To this amount would be added reimbursable EIB and EBRD loans. In Gyurcsany's opinion, such an amount will only be a beginning as he expects total Community support of nearly €2 billion for a project costing an estimated €8-10 billion. Mr Gyurcsany also called for the creation of an international Nabucco management, grouping together the political leaders of the countries concerned. He counted on an intergovernmental agreement being signed between the ten or so countries involved “by end June”. Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs promised that the intergovernmental agreement would be finalised for end March in parallel with the declarations of support from countries taking part in the project, so that the gas pipeline may be completed in 2010 at the earliest. President-in-Office of the European Council, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, for his part, stressed the importance of the project for the “peace, freedom and independence of the whole European continent”, in that it will reduce dependency on Russian energy. Stressing that, by circumventing Ukraine and Central Europe while maintaining strong energy dependency on Russia, the North Stream and South Stream gas pipelines are a “direct threat” against Nabucco, Mr Topolánek called on the EU to intervene in order to speed up completion of the project for which Turkey, speaking through the voice of its energy minister, Hilmi Güler, has confirmed its support. (E.H./transl.jl)