The strategic relevance of AGRI in Europe's southern gas corridor

Europe is almost completely dependent for her energy on outside suppliers. In recent years the European Union (EU) has not succeeded in reducing the energy dependencies by diversification, a keyword in European strategic papers (see, COM 2008 781 final). This makes the European Union as a geopolitical player in the world arena rather vulnerable. Especially the countries in Central and Eastern Europe are almost completely dependent for their gas supplies on Russia. Some countries in the Central and European space are trying to modify this state of affairs. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Romania have agreed upon in
April of this year to transport gas from the Caspian Sea via the Black Sea to Europe bypassing Russia. Later this year Hungary also has joined this so‐called AGRI consortium. As a result, EU‐member states will be less dependent on the gas pipelines that are carrying Russian gas through states that are under Russian control.