On January 23 in Bratislava, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Gazprom Vice-President Aleksandr Medvedev announced the intention to create a Slovak-Gazprom joint enterprise. Fico stated specifically that he wanted such an enterprise to compete against SPP (Slovensky plynarensky priemysel--Slovak Gas Industry), the joint company... MORE

The high-level conference in Budapest on the Nabucco gas project (see EDM, January 20, 22, 23, 27, 29) underscored a reality that seems to slip from the conceptual grasp of some influential West European circles. This reality is that diversification of supply sources and transport... MORE

On January 26 and 27 Hungary hosted a high-level policy conference on the Nabucco gas transport project, with participants encompassing the entire producer-transit-consumer chain from the Caspian basin to Europe, and with active involvement by the European Union for the first time. The event did... MORE

The Nabucco gas transport project, whose stakeholders and institutional backers are holding a high-level meeting in Budapest on January 26 and 27, faces a unique window of opportunity in a reshaped strategic context (see EDM, January 6, 22). The meeting is being held in the... MORE

On January 23 in Tashkent, Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan firmed up bilateral agreements that strengthen Russia’s monopoly on Uzbek exports of natural gas. Their quid-pro-quo involves a steep increase in Gazprom’s purchase price for Uzbek gas in return for... MORE

On January 19 in Brussels, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to “reconsider” his country’s participation in the Nabucco gas transit pipeline project unless the European Union promptly opened negotiations on the energy chapter in Turkey’s EU accession process (see EDM, January 20). The... MORE

While the Nabucco pipeline remains clearly the centerpiece of the Southern Corridor project, Nabucco alone—even in its second, full-capacity phase—would be far from sufficient to cover the rise in European demand for non-Russian gas in the next decade. A fully-developed Southern Corridor could achieve the... MORE

Hungary is hosting a high-level meeting of active and potential participants in the Nabucco gas transport project on January 26 and 27. Top officials of supplier, transit, and consumer countries; international financial institutions; the European Union; and the United States are expected to participate (MTI,... MORE

German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama (see article above) replaces the language of diplomacy with the rhetoric of the German Left. By reaching out to recuperate its constituency, the open letter marks the start of the Social-Democrat... MORE

German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier has addressed a lengthy open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on the eve of his inauguration. Published in Germany’s mass-circulation weekly Der Spiegel (January 12-18), Steinmeier’s letter is an unconventional diplomatic step and unprecedented in its pathos-filled style. Echoing... MORE