Press Release: Commissioner Piebalgs welcomes agreement to accelerate Nabucco gas pipeline project

The Energy Ministers of Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey together with Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs agreed to accelerate commercial, regulatory and legal work to build the Nabucco gas pipeline in the shortest possible time. The agreement was signed in the form a joint declaration at the end of a ministerial conference on Nabucco that took place on 26 June 2006 in Vienna. The pipeline was seen as critical to the long-term necessity for Europe to connect its gas market to the Caspian region and was likely to be the first of many supply routes through Southern Europe. The European Union had conceived a scenario in which 10 – 15% of its gas would come from this region by 2025.

European Commission: Speech: SPEECH/06/413: Nabucco Pipeline – Searching for Alternative Routes for our Gas Supply, 26.6.06 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/06/413&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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