You're reading: Fule: EU, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan to keep working on Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline project

BAKU - The European commissioner for enlargement and European neighborhood policy has said that energy is an area of strategic partnership between the European Union and Azerbaijan, and that significant progress has been made in building the Southern Energy Corridor. 

Stefan Fule, who was speaking at a news conference after a meeting of the EU-Azerbaijan Cooperation Council in Brussels, also hailed the Azeri parliament’s ratification of agreements with Turkey on the construction and management of the TANAP pipeline.

He said the EU expects the Shakh-Deniz consortium to choose the route for the export of Caspian natural gas to the EU within months.

The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline project was one of the issues raised at the meeting of the EU-Azerbaijan Cooperation Council, at which Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov was present, Fule said.

Both sides reaffirmed their commitments to closely cooperate with Turkmenistan in drafting an Azeri-Turkmen-EU agreement on the planned pipeline, which would form part of the Southern Energy Corridor, the commissioner said.

Fule said talks on a planned association agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan had become more intensive over the last few months, but that the Union would like more rapid progress to be made in negotiating some aspects of the accord.

EU-Azeri talks on simpler visa rules and readmission that began in March will become more intensive next year, he said.