Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that even the energy project clearly showed that Turkey should become an EU member.
“The Nabucco project will lay the groundwork for further improvement of Turkey’s relations with the EU in energy,” Erdogan said during the Nabucco summit in the Turkish capital of Ankara, where Nabucco Intergovernmental Agreement was signed.
Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria signed the Nabucco Intergovernmental Agreement during the summit. The Nabucco Project will transport natural gas to Austria via Turkey.
“We are taking an important step for our countries, friendship and peace, and the welfare of upcoming generations,” Erdogan said.
The 3,300-kilometre (2,000-mile) pipeline is to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Austria while bypassing Russia — the main source of Europe’s gas.
The project is planned to become operational in 2014 and estimated to cost 7.9 billion euros (10.6 billion dollars).
It is in direct competition with Russia’s South Stream project, developed by Russian gas giant Gazprom and Italy’s Eni, which will channel Russian gas through Bulgaria to Western Europe under the Black Sea.
