Green call to block EU funds for pipeline

Date: 12/09/02

By David Cronin

ENVIRONMENTALISTS are demanding that the EU should not finance a massive oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean unless it is proven that the project's advantages outweigh any damage it will cause.

The Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank, the Union's lending arm, is currently in talks with a group of major companies about possibly allocating loans for the 1,760-kilometre pipeline.

With an estimated cost of €3 billion, the project is due to stretch from Baku, Azerbaijan, through Georgia and end at Ceyhan in Turkey.

Its critics are especially angered by an accord between British Petroleum, the leading firm in the project, and the Ankara authorities over the Turkish section of the pipeline. Although the so-called host government agreement was finalised more than two years ago, green activists say they have only now obtained a copy of it.

According to these groups, the accord would enable the consortium involved to seek 'unlimited protection' from Turkey's security forces, without guarantees that human rights standards will be upheld.

They also contend that it gives the firms 'unfettered access' to water, irrespective of how much of this precious resource locals may require, and immunity from prosecution should the project be linked to an oil spill or other ecological catastrophe.

'BP wants to waive the rules, destroying the environment and trampling on the rights of local communities with impunity,' said Friends of the Earth campaigner Tony Juniper.

'Left to their own devices, corporations are quite happy to put profits before people.'

BP rejects those claims. It has published a study assessing the likely social and environmental impact of the pipeline and has invited feedback from interested parties.

BP spokesman Toby Odone said the company had commissioned the study on its own initiative and was not obliged to have one prepared under Turkish law.

'Rather than trampling all over people, we are actually doing something well beyond the call of duty,' Odone added.

'However, this is something we'd do anywhere. We are committed to full, open and democratic negotiations.'

Environmentalists are seeking a thorough examination of the security implications of routing a pipeline through this volatile political region, scene of several conflicts in recent history.

Additionally, they want an evaluation of its potential effect on climate change and that the companies involved release a raft of confidential documents for public scrutiny.

The consortium is talking to the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as the EIB, about the possibility of loans for the project.

It is hoping one-third of the costs will be bankrolled by these institutions and that a deal on financing will be hammered out within the next few months, so work on completing it by a 2005 target date can commence.

Along with BP, the pipeline is backed by Italy's ENI, France's TotalFinaElf, Turkey's Turkiye Petroleum, America's Unocal, Norway's Statoil and Azerbaijan's State Oil Company (SOCAR).

Environmentalists are demanding that the European Union should not finance a massive oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Mediterranean unless it is proven that the project's advantages outweigh any damage it will cause.