UPI: Azerbaijan decides Europe's energy security

Azerbaijan on Wednesday decided the fate of energy security in Central and Southern Europe.

After more than a decade of diplomatic and commercial wrangling, the so-called Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian Sea to EU markets was determined by the holders of the gas: Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR, which has emerged as a major regional energy player.

The company chose Trans-Adriatic Pipeline over its rival Nabucco West. TAP will move Caspian natural gas through Greece and Albania to Italy while Nabucco West would have snaked through Central Europe to Austria's distribution hub at Baumgarten.

While the corridor is now only in its opening stages, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says, it could eventually provide 10 percent of EU natural gas needs.

It is notable that the decision of choosing between the two pipelines wasn't made by Washington, which since the Clinton administration has had a special envoy for Eurasian Energy (or comparable position) coordinating energy diplomacy among Brussels, Baku, Ankara and a host of other producers and consumers, from far-flung Turkmenistan to desperate Bulgaria.  MORE