And what happens to Turkey if the talks fail? Slower economic progress, greater defense spending and reduced international credibility.
For Turkey, "loss of the prospect of EU membership would deprive the country of its main locomotive for modernization and would likely reduce foreign investment and economic growth." Nice one.
read it and weep
Rivals become partners?
By Mehmet Öğütçü and Danila Bochkarev
21.09.2009 / 10:43 CET
Can Turkey and Russia develop a ‘win-win' energy partnership that will also address European security of supply concerns?
At many times the worst of enemies, having fought 12 wars in three centuries, Turkey and Russia are becoming the best of friends. The friendship has been developing for some time, but it was put dramatically on display when Russia's President Vladimir Putin visited Ankara on 6 August and, in the space of eight hours, offered a set of proposals for strategic and economic co-operation on energy projects worth €27 billion.
It is still not clear whether Moscow has the gas, oil and money to back up its proposals, but Putin's message to Turkey was loud and clear: “we will make it worth your while to do business with Russia”.
The visit was also a response to long-standing Turkish frustration with the EU and also to a potentially important advance in the Turkish-European energy relationship: in July, shortly before Putin's visit, Turkey agreed in principle to be a transit country for the Nabucco pipeline that will bring gas from the Caspian to Europe, via Turkey.
In the energy sector, Russia's policy towards Turkey is based on several pillars that, together, support a ‘win-win' strategy, in which Russia caters to Turkey's interests and Russia's energy companies expand internationally.
One pillar is the acquisition by Russian firms of assets abroad. In July 2008 LUKOil significantly boosted its downstream presence in Turkey by buying a network of filling stations from Akpet.
Russia also wants to play a lead role in Turkey's lucrative downstream sector, the second pillar of the strategy. Gazprom is keen on bidding for major city distribution projects and gas-fired power plants, while Rosatom has offered to move ahead with a Russian-built nuclear power plant.
Last but not least, Moscow managed to get Ankara's permission for its South Stream pipeline to Italy to pass through Turkish waters in the Black Sea.
As a quid pro quo, Moscow offered to support and supply the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which will connect Turkey's Black Sea port at Samsun and an oil terminal at Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. The pipeline is designed to ease the traffic going through the Bosphorus Straits, a bottleneck that handles about 3.7% of the world's oil supply.
Gazprom also affirmed a commitment to expand the existing Blue Stream gas pipeline to Turkey, so that it may eventually lead across Turkey to Cyprus and Israel.
Russia's relationship with Turkey
Observers have taken several messages from this deepening of co-operation. Some argue that it was another example of just how much more effective the Kremlin's energy policy has been than the US's and Europe's. Russia has offered more business and more energy; by contrast, the US and the EU have seemed indifferent to Turkey's priorities and concerns,
Others look with concern at this new dynamic geo-strategic conjuncture between Ankara and Moscow, fearing that some Western energy and strategic interests may be over-ridden, with possible security ramifications in the long run.
It would be a mistake, though, to think that Turkey is simply awaiting its turn to be moved by the US, the EU and Russia on their grand chess board. It is playing a game of its own.
The country is geographically close to 71.8% of the world's proven gas and 72.7% of oil reserves from Russia, the Caspian region and the Gulf. It also provides access to the Bosphorus Straits and the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey therefore has the potential to become “the Silk Road of the 21st century” – and it is realising that potential by becoming the nexus of multiple important pipeline projects, some of them leading to the heavy-consuming nations of Europe.
In this context, Ankara is confident that it can handle both the challenges and opportunities associated with Russia's position as an energy power.
Russia's importance to Turkey is not new. It has traditionally been the biggest player in the region and it figures prominently in almost all of Turkey's energy designs and geopolitical calculations. But Russia's traditional dominance in the region is being challenged by China and other relative newcomers, primarily the US and the EU. Russia knows that. A desire to regain some of the influence it has lost has encouraged it to foster new partnerships, as in the case of Turkey.
The net result is that both countries have become increasingly aware of the opportunities a better relationship would offer. The benefits are already very evident in bilateral trade. Russia has become Turkey's biggest economic partner, replacing Germany – trade between the two countries reached €26bn in 2008 and is expected to reach €69bn in the next four years. As energy looms larger in the domestic and regional calculus of both countries, especially with regard to their European relationships, the strategic importance of the Turco-Russian rapprochement will undoubtedly grow stronger.
A zero-sum game?
There is little doubt that Russia's energy overtures to Turkey have a strong geopolitical dimension. It wants to draw Turkey into a closer strategic alignment with Russia, but, primarily, it is designed to have an effect on Europe. That effect is both political and specific: it wants Turkish interests to be so intertwined with Russia's that the EU's southern gas corridor project, Nabucco, would be less of a threat to Russia.
But while Russia may see closer ties as Turkey as a means of limiting the increase in Europe's role in the economies of the former Soviet Union, it would be overstatement to say that Turkey is turning its back on Europe or simply playing the Russia card against the West in order to strengthen its own hand.
For Turkey – and, for that matter, Europe – a closer Turkish-Russian partnership in energy need not be a zero-sum game. Turkey could provide both a new and reliable transit corridor capable of transporting both Russian and non-Russian gas to Europe in the event of a supply crisis.
Turkey therefore has a chance to turn this partnership into a win-win proposition. Its co-operation with Russia could benefit it, Russia and Europe. If so, it could help to allay deep-seated concerns in the Russian-European relationship. Turkey is emerging as a major energy hub; it is also likely to become a genuine regional power.
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/20 ... 65924.aspx
