The Nabucco pipeline as a safety net

From 2011, the Nabucco pipeline running between Turkey and Austria is to supply several EU member states with Iranian natural gas in a bid to reduce their independence on Russian imports. Mihnea Maruta was therefore surprised to learn that all the Nabucco countries with the exception of Romania have now approved of plans for natural gas imports from Russia. "These are the facts: Turkey has a direct pipeline to Russia which was agreed on in a partnership agreement signed in 2005. It's called the Bluestream pipeline and runs along the bed of the Black Sea. In March 2007 the government in Budapest signed an agreement with Moscow for the Bluestream to be extended to run from Turkey through Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia to Hungary. Agreements for oil pipelines between Greece and Moscow followed. Last Thursday Putin visited Vienna and gave his approval for a contract between Gazprom and OMV for the construction of huge storage facilities in Austria, which are to provide the rest of the country with a constant supply by 2027."

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