My enemy’s enemy is my friend. This ancient proverb partly describes the EU’s fast developing relationship with Muslim Azerbaijan, a Turkic country whose forever enemy is neighbouring Christian Armenia which is militarily supported by Russia. And natural gas is the crux of this unnatural alignment.
On 18 July the EU gleefully announced that by 2027 the Azerbaijan government had agreed to increase its gas supply from its Caspian Sea fields to Europe from 8 bcm (billion cubic metres) to 20 bcm per annum. Although this would still only represent 12 per cent of Europe’s gas imports last year, President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, nevertheless described Azerbaijan as ‘a key partner in our efforts to move away from Russian fossil fuels’.
Given that Azerbaijan is currently experiencing power blackouts itself, it can only be assumed that the EU is preparing to chip in significant investment into the development of Baku’s Caspian Sea gas fields.
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