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Does Turkey Prefer A European Or Eurasian Energy Union?
Submitted by The Jamestown Foundation via OilPrice.com,
The sixth meeting of the World Forum on Energy Regulation is scheduled to be held on May 25–28, in Istanbul, and is being organized by the office of the prime minister of the Turkish Republic. The competitive and dynamically expanding nature of the energy sector in Eurasia has been boosting Turkey’s regional importance as it prepares to take on the role of a strategically important transit and energy hub country (Hurriyet Daily News, January 28).
December 2014 saw the reemergence of competition between rival pipeline projects in Eurasia—similar to the earlier competition between the Nabucco natural gas pipeline, proposed by a consortium of European companies, and Russia’s South Stream. Currently, Russia’s new proposed pipeline project—Turkish Stream—is challenging the Azerbaijani-initiated Southern Gas Corridor, which will carry Caspian-basin gas to Europe via the South Caucasus, Turkey and then across Southeastern Europe.
Turkey is already signed on to the Southern Gas Corridor—the Corridor’s longest pipeline segment, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), will cross Turkey from east to west—but it is also being strongly courted by Moscow to host Turkish Stream (see EDM, December 17, 2014; February 20, 2015). This growing significance of Turkey in competing large-scale energy transit projects across Europe and Eurasia has also opened up a discussion domestically regarding which prospective energy union the country should become part of—European or Eurasian.
In particular, the Turkish media has been discussing the idea of an Energy Union for Eurasia since the beginning of the year. Gurkan Kumbaroglu, the Istanbul-based president-elect of the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE), said that his organization aims to create an energy union that will include 18 countries and be under the supervision of Turkey, Russia and Azerbaijan. According to the IAEE, the formation of this regional entity was agreed at a meeting that included Kumbaroglu as well as representatives from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) (Yeni Safak, January 27).
Kumbaroglu said the IAEE’s aim is to gather Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, Romania, Kazakhstan, Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Slovenia under the same project, particularly because many of these countries have cool or antagonistic relationships and have never effectively worked together before. “As the IAEE, we hope to invest in these countries, establish workshops and form business opportunities,” Kumbaroglu explained. (Daily Sabah, January 26). In addition, the Eurasian Energy Union has started discussions on the establishment of a common energy platform among Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan within the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (Souzveche.ru, March 6).
Notably, the office headquarters for the IAEE’s Eurasian Energy Union will be located in Istanbul, which SOCAR enthusiastically supports. According to Azerbaijani energy expert Fuad Alizade, “Turkey will be a good platform for Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan for establishing energy cooperation within the Eurasian Energy Union” (Novosti.az, January 29).
Meanwhile, however, the European Union is currently in the process of creating its own Energy Union, which will replace its heretofore existent Energy Community (of which Turkey is an observer but not a formal member) (EurActiv, February 26). Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice president responsible for the EU Energy Union, has noted that the Union will assist member states in their negotiations with important suppliers such as Russia for natural gas.
And under its expansive energy strategy, the European Energy Union aims to support over 1 billion euros in investment in energy projects until 2020, as well as pass a strategically coordinated list of energy reform legislation. Sefcovic also declared that strategic cooperation with Turkey will be pursued within the European Energy Union in order to lay the groundwork for a genuine common energy market for Europe. The EU, he promised, will use all foreign policy instruments at its disposal to establish strategic energy partnerships with production or transit countries such as Turkey, Azerbaijan and Gibraltar, as well as other potential suppliers (Hurriyet Daily News, March 16).
Turkey’s central role within the South Gas Corridor and its potential relations with or even inclusion in an EU Energy Union structure is threatening to Russia’s continued dominant position—particularly, in the energy sphere—in the region Moscow considers its “near abroad.” Consequently, Moscow has been pressing Ankara to agree to Russian proposals and trying to imply that Europe is not happy with the energy partnership between Russia and Turkey (Verda Ozer, Hurriyet, February 14, 2015; CNNTURK, December 2, 2014).
Moreover, it has been working hard to convince Turkey that a closer partnership with Russia, over other regional players, will be most beneficial to Turkey over the long term (Kanal A, December, 4, 2014).
Turkey is currently trying to decide which of the two similar though competing projects—the Eurasian or the European Energy Union—would be more beneficial for the country.
Considering the partially overlapping memberships of the two structures, especially in the Balkans, it remains to be seen how viable it will be for either energy union to exist simultaneously; or if, in fact, there can be some way to integrate both projects in the future. Moreover, Russia’s attempts to build an ever closer relationship with Turkey—and the latter’s openness to such gestures—will complicate regional energy geopolitics further.
Thus, Brussels and Ankara are likely to disagree on strategically important energy security issues over the coming years unless Turkey and the EU can achieve tighter cooperation under the framework of the European Energy Union. But if Turkey instead starts to pursue a more independent policy, particularly one at odds with the European Union, the Eurasian region will experience ever more unstable and competitive energy geopolitics.
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What does Rotten Ronnies have to do with Turkey Prefering a EU or Eurasian Energy Union, other than they both produce smelly natural gas?
Anyways, to save you the bother of reading the article, Turkey is probably better off aligning with the Eurasian Union, but is being threatened by another US/EU sponsored revolution unless they submit to Washington, and her Brussels minions.
Mexico has good food .... but, where are the international chain restaurants ?
President Zippy and secretary of state Ketchup has killed foreign policy, so it's every country for itself. The world is realigning and America has bullied its allies and sucked up to its enemies and is committing national suicide...slowly...
LL: Agreed.
The pompous asses in Brussels thought they could carve out a whole new area of bureaucratic control for Brussels - energy supplies and pipelines throughout the EU and control of gas prices from Russia. The USA, alarmed at the increasing political and trade integration of the EU with Russia, sought to drive a wedge between them, and used Ukraine and the promise of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from the US and elsewhere to persuade the EU to retreat from friendly relations with Russia. Cold War 2.0 is here.
Russia has been the supplier of about 30% of the natural gas used in the EU, and half of that gas comes through Ukraine. The gas pipelines from Russia through Ukraine have been a headache because Ukraine kept siphoning off gas and not paying for it, so Russia shut off the lines in 2006 and 2009 to force the EU to pressure Ukraine to pay up. Then Russia planned the North Stream across the Baltic and South Stream across the Black Sea to bypass Ukraine entirely. North Stream was completed in 2012. Then, after North Stream was built and after Russia signed up deals for South Stream with the various EU nations along its route, Brussels waded in with their "Third Energy Package" (3rdEP). 3rdEP provided for an EU "energy union", gave Brussels sole rights to negotiate prices with Russia, and set out "competition rules" that say that no single entity can both own and supply all the oil or gas carried in a pipeline. Since Russia and Gazprom were the financiers and owners of North Stream South Stream, these rules meant that Gazprom would have to let others share use of their lines. This looks like an attempt to force Russia to agree to renegotiate gas prices, and share profits, ownership, and use of their pipelines with the EU and its cronies.
Various countries along the South Stream route said they would honor their contracts with Russia and let the pipeline proceed, but Brussels and the USA piled on the pressure and in 2014 Bulgaria refused to issue building permits, so in December 2014 Putin made a deal with Turkey to divert the line to Turkey and run it to a gas hub at the Turkey-Greece border. That sidestepped the EU rules for South Stream. The EU and and its gas Mandarin, Sefcovic, first went into denial, insisting that South Stream would be built, and be built according to EU rules as soon as the idiots in Moscow were enlightened by some straight talk from Brussels. Russia stood by their message - if the EU wants gas from Russia, the EU would have to pay for and build pipelines to gas hubs. Brussels still thinks it can force Russia to build South Stream per EU rules. Dream on.
In the meantime, the EU has applied its new rules to North Stream, restricting its volume to about half of design capacity because Russia and Gazprom will not cave and let EU cronies have part ownership and use of the line.
Brussels thought Russia would be desperate for a deal, any deal, in 2014 over North Stream and South Stream because of EU sanctions, the 3rdEP restrictions, and war on the ruble, but Russia turned the tables by announcing the end of South Stream and the diversion into Turk Stream, and applying its own sanctions against EU exports.
So, why is Russia making nice with Turkey? Turkey's Erdogan was ripe for this. Turkey has been touted by the EU, USA, and US allies as the "Southern Gas Corridor", a route to bring gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to compete with Russian gas supplies. The Nabucco pipeline project was intended to bring this new gas supply from Iran, Iraq, Israel, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, etc., through Syria and Turkey to the EU. But then US sanctions ruled out Iran, and Syria refused to go along since it is an ally of Iran and already had a deal with Iran for a pipeline to bring gas from Iran across Iraq , Syria and Lebanon to Turkey and the Mediterranean. The only supplier that could or would sign up to supply gas for Nabucco was Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan decided to go with the competing TAP line across Turkey to Greece and Italy, so Nabucco died.
But the US and its allies have not given up on bringing gas across Syria, so they have been waging war on Syria's Assad ever since, trying to replace him with their puppet. The US et. al. unleashed the "Free Syrian Army", then Al Nujsrah, then ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State, upon Assad. Russia and Iran have been supporting Assad.
Erdogan was only too happy to embrace Russia and Turk Stream. Turkey has been trying to join the EU for decades. The EU gave Turkey candidate status, but kept putting off full entry over "human rights abuses" and kept raising Turkey's refusal to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide of 1915 (a very touchy sore point for Turkey). After Turk Stream was announced, Erdogan announced that Turkey was telling the EU to stuff their membership, and that he was not too happy with NATO, either. Shock and dismay in Brussels over the failure of Erdogan to realize that the Sun shines out of the back of the Brussels trousers.
The planned gas hub at the Turkey/Greece border, and its promise of transit fees for Greece, have been used as a lever to loosen Greece's adherence to the EU, and perhaps to extend a Russia-friendly arc from Turkey across southern Europe to Portugal via gas politics. The austerity imposed by Brussels and the ECB/EC/IMF Troika upon the PIIGS makes these nations ripe for radical political swings that Russia might capitalize upon.
Brussels and the EU continue to seek leverage against Russia via competing gas supplies through Turkey. Just days ago, a deal was announced for gas from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan to be delivered via the Southern Gas Corridor. But this is in the preliminary planning stages, and may not come to fruition. Bulgaria insists that South Stream is not dead, and Gazprom has allowed that a line through Bulgaria might still be built but on Bulgaria's dime and on Gazprom's terms.
Many critics have pointed out the unlikelihood of LNG from the USA ever getting to Europe, and the high cost of LNG infrastructure that would be necessary, but the idea of LNG imports is still being touted. The Nabucco line and gas supply from the Middle East are still being promoted, but the failure to unseat Assad, continued instability in Iraq, and the prospect of sanctions against Iran being removed, all make the idea unlikely to gain traction soon.
So, gas continues to flow from Russia through Ukraine and via the Baltic, and Russia insists it will shut off the Ukraine lines in 2019 when its contracts for this gas corridor expire. The attempts by the EU to gain leverage against Russia over gas supply have, ironcally, led Russia to enter into contracts to send its gas to Turkey and China instead, with new pipelinesto China (financed helpfully by China) to be completed in 2019 or 2020.
The US attempts to drive a wedge between the EU and Russia have been successful to a large extent, to the cost of Russia's exports to Europe and Russia's access to Western capital markets, but also at the cost of the EU's loss of exports to Russia.
And the winners are.....Turkey and China.
off topic
Turkey's "leaders" prefer whichever energy penis satisfies their slut holes more.
You're an idiot... no doubt.
Idiod .... he races dog sleds in Alaska ?
"But if Turkey instead starts to pursue a more independent policy, particularly one at odds with the European Union, the Eurasian region will experience ever more unstable and competitive energy geopolitics."
I hate when I have to read all the way to the end in order to get the point of the article. And the view wasn't worth the climb in this case.
Read to the end? WTF? I thought you only reacted to headlines.
You got me there.
You read my mind.
<<But if Turkey instead starts to...>>
Yeah, if, if, if...
Had to give this article a "1", b/c it just looks like nothing but talk to me. Turkey's role in Southern Corridor is well established, since they were among the first to make this news. (That was when Europe realised Southstream was tits up.) So now Europe is talking about forming a union, and talking about who they want to sign up, and getting ready to throw a bunch of money at it. So Europe is talking and talking, which is all they seem to do. Throw in some yappityyap about Russia "pressing" to make it sound like they feel oh so threatened. Oh, and Europe plans to pass legislation, quel surprise.
Lots of talk and plans by useless eurocrats, and nothing concrete in place. If they actually form something and join some nations up in productive trade agreements, THEN it's news. But all this talk is just hoping & praying by press release.
specifically, this talk about an EU Energy Union started as a diplomatic wink: "dear Gazprom, if you are a monopolist, and a state-owned to boot, then perhaps we in the EU should put up a single buyer to match the market dominance of a single seller"
"Thank you single buyer sir! Now, if you would like to step aside please, there are others standing in line behind you."
Honestly, Ghordo, how many sovereigns in Europe do you truly believe will put up with being served such bullcrap with Brussels sprouts?
SouthStream pipeline from Bulgaria to Novorossiysk can still be built if Bulgaria and EU want it.
The only change is that if Russia cannot control the pipeline then Russia won't be paying to build it. But Russia will grant leases to enable EU to build a pipeline under the Black Sea at their own expense, no problem.
Is Erdogan still pissed at Israel .... for busting his arms smuggling to Gaza .... I hope so !
pimp sisi egypt,erdogan traitorious dog bastard house of saud
and you monetas all worship saturn satan in the synagogue of hell.
you are one tribe of blood suckers stop bitching you whore as for barry obarmy he yours as well faggot.
I'm the idiot on the block, I suppose.
But it is interesting to me that Greece is included in the IAEE, the International Association for Energy Economics.
If I were to make a decision for Turkey I would get sleepy. In any case I would choose for them to go against the NWO in whatever they decide because no one is safe while the NWO exists.
excellent point. but who is more for the "NWO"?
from a trading point of view, I guess the EU is more "NWO friendly". financially and monetarily... don't get me started
but from a point of view of supporting the role of the existing Military-Industrial Complexes, be them the US or the Russian one, I'd say Russia is critical for the NWO
I mean, the "NWO" is still about "providing security to the world", isn't it?
ha a nwo whore you are finally your true identity revealed .
ha another week-old account
Eurasian. Erdogan is like a woman scorned after feeling like Turkey was so close to entering the EC club...only to be left twisting in the wind with a plunging lira. Note his aversion to European things over the past 2 years and his re-Islamization.
Erdogan is looking away from Europe now.
turkish control over the balkans was last happening when the ottomans controlled swaths of europe.
this is not 'european' this is ottoman. and the new sultans are going to be emboldened by their cooperation with sino-russo axis.
erdogan along with tel aviv runs one of the biggest live organ harvesting operations on the planet.
runs children in the thousands the prized ones get lear jetted out for talmoo papal rituals.
my advice to putnick is have a back up gas plan as the whorish turk is a dog who will sell it's mom for a coin of silver or gold.
"Does Turkey Prefer A European Or Eurasian Energy Union?"
Which one will Zion let Turkey "prefer?"
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
"Choose wisely, or we'll send Nuland with some cookies."
This is ridiculous. There can be no economic war where there is only ONE supplier for a good everyone needs.
What are they quibbling over, precisely? The EU CANNOT DO without the Russian gas, period. We're lucky Russia sells it at a good price. She could raise it, and there is nothing we could do.
The EU is being idiotic yet again. Once more...
I think Turkey prefers BOTH.
This explains why this article has no substance.It is ussa BS
Anyone tell these clowns that the EU has no energy sources?
Anyone tell these clowns that Turkey and the EU are not talking to each other?
From Wikipedia
'The Jamestown Foundation was founded in 1984 after Arkady Shevchenko, the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to defect when he left his position as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, defected in 1978. William Geimer, an American lawyer, had been working closely with Shevchenko, and established the foundation as a vehicle to promote the writings of the former Soviet diplomat and those of Ion Pacepa, a former top Romanian intelligence officer; with the help of the foundation, both defectors published bestselling books.[2] The CIA Director William J. Casey helped back the formation of The Jamestown Foundation, agreeing with its complaints that the U.S. intelligence community did not provide sufficient funding of Soviet bloc defectors.[3][4] The foundation, initially also dedicated to supporting Soviet dissidents, enabled the defectors from the Eastern Bloc to earn extra money by lecturing and writing.[5]'
In the past, Jamestown's board of directors has included Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter.[7] Jamestown's current board includes Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, who has served in the Bill Clinton White House and in 2009 was tasked by President Barack Obama to overhaul U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.[8]