European energy security: the future of Nabucco

It was major news at last week’s summit of EU leaders that German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned about on her previous opposition to EU funding for the Nabucco pipeline to bring Caspian and possibly Middle Eastern natural gas to Europe. That which should have be most striking up to this point, however, was an EU leader’s strenuous undermining of a project designated a European strategic priority by the EU Commission. A 200 million Euro drop in the ocean of funding may have been secured for Nabucco’s construction, but the underlying intra-EU obstacles to its realisation remain as strong as ever.