EU steps up energy partnership with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan

The EU intends to rely on the development of relations with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistanm according to the draft long-term EU energy strategy. 

"I think that Europe has really got tired of each summer having a discussion of how to make it through the next winter. The world’s biggest economy should not have such concerns in the 21st century," the deputy chairman of the European Energy Commission, Maros Sefcovic, said in an interview with the Financial Times. 

According to him, Russia would remain a “very important supplier” for the EU but its influence would lessen. 

Sefcovic has prioritised the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which will run to Italy and is due to provide Europe with 10 billion cubic metres of Azeri gas by 2020.

According to the European Commission, in 2014 the EU imported 53% of its energy consumption, which cost about 400 billion euros.