Ten days after the laying of the Foundation of the second part of the project “southern gas corridor — the TRANS-Adriatic pipeline (TAP), which provides for the release of Azerbaijani gas to the European markets, Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Greece made a statement, from which it can be concluded that Russia will no longer hinder the construction of the gas pipeline and resigned to the fact that the Azerbaijani gas will go to the South of Europe.
Putin’s visit to Athens more memorable with a visit to the historic monuments and sitting him on the throne of the Greek emperors. But that’s about the gas pipeline project ITGI Poseidon, which is an alternative to TAR, for all the time of the visit the head of Russia was not mentioned. Putin only said that in expanding the export of Russian gas to the European markets, he relies on the gas pipeline project Nord stream-2″, which will connect Russia with Europe through the Baltic sea.
ITGI Poseidon was proposed in 2003. Under the project, the gas was transported from North-East Greece to the South of Italy, that is the route of the gas line completely coincides with the route of TAP. In the beginning of this year, the same day, when Baku hosted the meeting of Ministers of the southern gas corridor, Putin summoned gaugebroba Miller in conversation with him, noted the importance of coordination with Italy and Greece the construction of the ITGI Poseidon. It became clear that the Kremlin is unhappy that the TAP project will weaken the monopolistic position of Gazprom on the European markets. Pushing alternative projects, the Kremlin would like to retain Gazprom’s position in southern Europe.
However, the plans of Putin and Gazprom was prevented by geopolitical turmoil. First, Russia together with Turkey to put forward the project “Turkish stream”, according to which it was planned to deliver 30-40 billion cubic meters of gas to the Turkish-Greek border, that is, to the point where they were joined together with TANAP and TAP. The parties have made strong statements and even started to work.
But due to the political crisis in Turkey in the summer of 2015 its Parliament has not ratified a draft agreement with Russia on “Turkish stream”, and after it was shot down by a Russian su-24 bomber, the project was buried.
Not reassured, at the beginning of this year, Gazprom took out on the agenda one more loud project — ITGI Poseidon and even made it to a preliminary agreement. And now Putin during his visit to Athens somehow bypassed this project is silence. May 27 at its joint with the Greek Prime Minister press conference, the President of Russia made a formal statement on energy cooperation, but not a word is said about how to implement the Memorandum on ITGI Poseidon.
But before this visit, Putin has made some efforts for the resuscitation of the project “southern gas flow”. He met in the Kremlin with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić. And before that, Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov flew to Hungary, which is also included in the southern gas stream. This project was halted at the request of the European Union, which considered that it violates the requirements of the European energy Charter. Russia also planned after the implementation of this project to stop transporting gas to Europe via Ukraine.
According to the ITGI-Poseidon project, Russian gas from the South of Italy had transported to the whole South of Europe. However, apparently, despite all the efforts of Moscow, Greek Prime Minister Tsipras chose to set aside all the plans, alternative TAR, which is supported by the European Union. This is understandable, because otherwise Greece would have lost the financial assistance of the European Union and the International monetary Fund because the US openly opposed any project, an alternative to the “southern gas corridor”. Moreover, States exerted serious pressure on the Greek government to accelerate the realization of “southern gas corridor”.
The results of Putin’s visit in Athens definitely say that today there are no obstacles for the delivery of Azerbaijani gas to the European markets. The war aimed to prevent conducted the project “southern gas corridor” is of strategic importance both for Azerbaijan and for Europe, ended with the victory in Baku.
