During the first day of the Nabucco gas pipeline summit in Budapest, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev announced that his country had agreed with Azerbaijan to hold talks on a deal that would see Bulgaria receive a billion cubic metres of gas a year.

The summit, which opened on January 26 2009, is being held as a response to the recent crisis that saw many European countries, Bulgaria included, deprived of natural gas supplies because of a dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

The summit is being attended by heads of state and government and economy and energy ministers from Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Iraq, Georgia, Austria, Turkey, Egypt and senior officials from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and the United States.

The consortium involved in the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which will transport gas from the Caspian region and Central Asia to Central Europe, diversifying sources and routes of gas supplies and increasing Europe's energy independence, has approached the European Investment Bank for financing.

The gas pipeline project is a venture by Hungary's MOL, Austria's OMV, Romania's Transgaz, Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, Turkey's Botas and Germany's RWE, which joined the established company Nabucco Gas Pipeline International that manages the project last year. The estimated cost of the project to build 3300km of pipeline is 4.5 billion euro.

EIB chairman Philippe Maystadt told a January 26 news conference in Budapest: "We have been approached by the Nabucco partners and have been asked to finance a substantial share of the project.

"In principle we're ready, but of course we'll only finance if it's viable so we'll need more information to see if this project would meet the criteria for financing," news agencies reported Maystadt as saying.

Bulgarian news agency Focus reported that Stanishev, speaking after meeting his Hungarian counterpart Ferenc Gyurcsany, said that Bulgaria and Hungary would ask the European Union for funding to implement the Nabucco gas pipeline project.

After meeting Azerbaijan president Ilhaim Aliyev, Stanishev said that "concrete talks" between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan about deliveries of a billion cubic meters of gas a year would start within a week.

Stanishev said that technical talks between Bulgarian gas company Bulgargaz and Azerbaijan's oil company Sokar would set out the details of the agreement.

Bulgarian National Radio reported on January 26 that the Budapest summit was expected to adopt a declaration expressing firm political support for the implementation of Nabucco.

Stanishev and his Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek, whose country is the current EU chair, discussed a proposal to build a liquefied gas terminal off the Greek port of Kavala and link it to Bulgaria at Dimitrovgrad. The two prime ministers also discussed the common European energy policy and lessons learned from the gas crisis.

A statement on the website of the Czech EU presidency confirmed that Topolanek had met representatives of Bulgaria, Georgia and Azerbaijan for bilateral talks on the prospects for reinforcing the EU energy security.

"It is time the European Union embraced this project and backed its implementation. Alternative supplies of energy resources must be independent both in terms of source and in terms of transit," Topolanek said.

The Czech EU presidency website quoted Stanishev as having emphasised that the construction of alternative corridors for supplies of energy resources now needed a clear political signal from the EU.

Topolanek and Stanishev agreed on the importance of further development and research in the area of nuclear energy use, the website said.

Georgian deputy prime minister Nika Gilauri asked the EU, through the Czech Presidency, to strengthen EU-Georgia relations at commercial as well as diplomatic levels and said that Georgia, alongside Azerbaijan, was a key state in terms of access to independent energy resources in the Caspian region.

The website said that Aliyev had drawn a comparison between the historical experience of his country and that of the Czech Republic and said in this respect that the issue of energy security was important not only for the economy, but also to maintain national independence.

Aliyev emphasised that the prospective implementation of the Nabucco project would not mean bypassing the Russian Federation, but choosing the shortest way for gas from the Caspian region to reach Europe.

Bulgaria's Focus agency quoted an interview Aliyev gave to Russian agency Itar Tass in which Aliyev was quoted as saying that the Nabucco project was a trade, not a political, issue for Azerbaijan.
 
"Azerbaijan backs the project but the question what part the state would play in it still remains - as a transit state or as a supplier of gas," Itar Tass quoted Aliyev as saying.

 He said that there was a real chance for Nabucco to be built in the next three to four years, but this would need strong political will and co-ordination.