A motion tabled by a group of Green MEPs to exclude major gas infrastructure projects from the European Commission’s list of projects of common interest (PCI), on the basis of their incompatibility with the EU’s commitments under the Paris Agreement, was largely voted down by the European Parliament on March 14. The Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) system of mega-pipelines (South Caucasus Pipeline: SCP, Trans Anatolian Pipeline: TANAP, Trans Adriatic Pipeline: TAP), together with the yet unrealized Trans Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCGP), can be found among the 173 priority energy projects which comprise the third version of the particular catalogue, published in November 2017.
According to the Greens’ rationale, only electricity and smart grid projects facilitating the clean energy transition should be eligible for EU funding, whereas gas pipelines and terminals would have to be deprived of their PCI status in the context of the fossil-fuel divestment movement. However, since the European Parliament is not allowed to position itself on individual projects of the PCI list and, consequently, reject or accept them, MEPs were required to decide on whether or not to force the Commission back to the drawing board to propose an entire new list. As shown by the vote break-up, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) overwhelmingly rejected the motion. A diverging sentiment was observed in the Social Democrat (S&D) MEPs due to their deep-rooted a priori ecological concerns. Still, it is worth mentioning that about a quarter of MEPs were supportive of the Greens’ effort, in a sign of the prevailing uncertainty within the Bloc with regard to the role of natural gas as a bridge-fuel to renewables in the context of carbon-free internal energy market.
Given its overall importance in comparison with other projects on the list, derived from its size, cost and security-of-supply objectives, the SGC remains high on the EU’s diversification agenda, as proved by this latest voting result. This is also why single project segments have been recently receiving loan disbursements and financial support from the European institutions. In February, some EUR1.9M ($2.4M) were pumped into the TCGP study under Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Subsequently, the European Investment Bank (EIB) approved loans of EUR1.5bn ($1.9bn) for TAP and EUR932M ($1.2bn) for TANAP. Therefore, despite the lack of consensus on the preferred way of switching to renewables (either immediately or gradually via the less dirty natural gas), or even on the most affordable renewable energy target for 2030, the SGC maintains its position as a key alternative to the predominant, but questionably reliable, Russian gas imports to the EU. Besides, as soon as the initial 16BCM/a network capacity (6BCM/a for the Turkish and 10BCM/a for the European markets through TAP) doubles, on the condition that more Azerbaijani, Turkmen or Iranian gas is secured, the SGC will satisfy the rudimentary goal of the European Commission as for the enhancement of the access of multiple gas producers to the EU and the development of more than one hub (Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Italy) that will collect the gas.
Available online at: http://www.caspianpolicy.org/energy/caspian-energy-insight-march-28-2018/#5