Southern Gas Corridor: Advisory Council meeting highlights strategic energy partnership between EU and Azerbaijan

The eighth Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council, held in Baku on 4 February, has reaffirmed the strategic energy partnership between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the European Union. 

According to a press statement by the co-chairs of the meeting, Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson, the partnership is based on shared goals of long-term energy security, security of supply and the green energy transition.

“We welcome the successful outcome of the full scale first operational year of the Southern Gas Corridor and its contribution to the provision of reliable, competitive and affordable energy supplies from the Republic of Azerbaijan to markets in Georgia, Turkey and Europe,” the statement said. “This transmission system spanning across six countries contributes to a diversification of energy supplies and sources, including to regions that previously lacked access to natural gas, where it can also support an accelerated coal phase-out.”

Shahbazov and Simson said the government of Azerbaijan continued to play “a strategic role as a key enabler of the Southern Gas Corridor and it continues its efforts to deliver secure, stable and affordable energy supplies to Europe”. 

The statement also emphasised efforts to examine a possible extension of the Southern Gas Corridor towards new energy markets, including the Western Balkans, and suggested to assess all commercial, environmental, technical, regulatory and climate-related matters, which could emerge in this case.

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Press release

Commissioners Simson and Várhelyi at the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Azerbaijan