Azerbaijan will supply the European Union (EU) with electricity through a new submarine cable, according to an agreement signed on Saturday in Romania and aimed at diversifying the bloc’s resources following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We have decided to turn our backs on Russian fossil fuels and turn to our reliable energy partners,” Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said in Bucharest.
The financial and technical framework of the agreement is not specified in the press release that Romanian President Klaus Iohannis published on the sidelines of a meeting between the various signatories.
It provides for the opening of the site in September 2023 for commissioning at the earliest in 2029. 1195 km long and almost exclusively submerged in the Black Sea, the cable must connect Azerbaijan to Hungary via Georgia and Romania.
These four countries are parties to the agreement. Romania and Hungary, members of the EU, benefit from the support of the European Commission.
“We are preparing to build the longest submarine electric cable. If I was younger, I would say that you have to be rock’n roll” to launch such a project, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Since the invasion of Ukraine in February, the EU has multiplied strategic partnerships with various producer states in an attempt to reduce its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.
It is “our contribution to European energy security” and “a new bridge between the EU and Azerbaijan”, estimated its president Ilham Aliyev.
The cable represents a “new route full of opportunity” for Georgia, “a country with a European destiny” which could become an “energy hub”, according to Ursula Von Der Leyen.
It will bring electricity “to our neighbors such as Moldova and Ukraine and will contribute to the modernization of the Ukrainian energy system”, added the President of the European Commission.
The agreement covers other areas of cooperation, such as “new energy technologies”, “hydrogen production” or “the expansion of transit infrastructure”, according to a press release from the Romanian presidency.