Azernews.Az

The European Commission will negotiate an agreement with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan for a trans-Caspian gas pipeline aiming to pave the way for the construction of infrastructure for the supply of Turkmen natural gas across the Caspian Sea.

The EU Council has adopted a mandate to authorize the Commission to negotiate the legal framework agreement, according to a communication on security of energy supply and international cooperation passed Wednesday by the European Commission and presented by EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger.

The document sets out for the first time a comprehensive strategy for the EU’s external relations in energy which lists 43 steps.

"The recent adoption by the Council of a mandate to authorize the Commission to negotiate an agreement…offers an immediate example of the benefits of EU-level action for energy security," it says.

"The EU must demonstrate that it is prepared to engage with the Caspian and the Middle East regions on a long term basis, both politically and economically. It must also assist main supplier countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iraq and others, notably in the Central Asia region, in developing their energy sectors in an efficient and sustainable way and related trade and investment patterns with the EU," the strategy says.

The trans-Caspian gas pipeline is considered an integral part of the Nabucco project, designed to transport gas from the Caspian region and the Middle East to the EU. The 300-kilometer pipeline will be laid from the Turkmen coast of the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan where it will be linked to the Nabucco pipeline. Talks between Turkmenistan and the EU and other countries on the construction of the trans-Caspian pipeline have been underway since the late 1990s. Its construction has been hampered by the unresolved status of the resource-rich Caspian Sea.