Turkey's Energy Strategy and its Role in the EU's Southern Gas Corridor

IAI Working Papers
ISSN 2280-4331 (online)

	Turkey's Energy Strategy and its Role in the EU's Southern Gas Corridor by Erkan Erdogdu IAI Working Papers 14|01 17 February 2014 Pages 15 ISBN 978-88-98650-06-4
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Paper produced within the framework of the IAI-Edison project "The changing regional role of Turkey and cooperation with the EU in the neighbourhood", February 2014. Abstract The Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) is a European Commission initiative aimed at facilitating the diversification of the routes and sources of gas imported into Europe. This paper is devoted to the analysis of Turkey’s role in this initiative. Following a summary of the current economic and energy situation in Turkey, the paper presents recent developments in the SGC and an analysis of Turkey's role in the EU's SGC vision. It concludes that although the newly-built infrastructure within the SGC framework will probably serve Azerbaijani and Turkish interests first in their future relations with the EU, rather than the other way round, as had been initially hoped by the EU, it still addresses the EU's basic strategic interests, namely, the diversification of gas supply routes and suppliers. Keywords Turkey | European Union | Energy security | Natural gas | Pipelines Author(s) Erkan Erdogdu holds a PhD from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and works as energy market specialist in the Energy Market Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Turkey (EMRA). Contents Introduction 1. Current economic and energy situation in Turkey 2. Southern Gas Corridor, TANAP & TAP decisions 3. An analysis of Turkish international gas policy Conclusion Annex References