Requiem for Nabucco

It could be curtains for the European Union's most ambitious attempt to ensure independent access to a crucial raw material – natural gas. To the point that for the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, it is already time to write "an obituary for Nabucco," the gas pipeline project meant to link the wells of the Caspian Sea to Europe by way of Turkey.

Already undermined by Russia's progress in competing the South Stream project as well as by the lack of both investment and agreements with supplier countries, the €15 billion project could be fatally hit by news published in the weekly magazine Focus saying that Germany's RWE Group, the principal investor in the project, plans to withdrawn at the end of the year. Its 16.67 per cent share could be bought by Austria's OWE. For theSüddeutsche Zeitung –

This fiasco shows, once again, how Europe lacks a response to Russian domination in the raw materials sector. For a long time the gas pipeline was seen as the example of failed European industrial and energy policies. Because although spurred by words, it garnered little concrete financial or political support.