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Southeast Europe
February 9, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 14
EIB to go ahead with controversial €1.5bn loan for TAP pipeline
Clare Nuttall in Bucharest
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved €1.5bn of financing for the Trans- Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which will carry gas from the Caspian to southern Europe.
The EIB decision, made by its board on February 6, follows heavy pressure from environmental groups who argued that the development bank should avoid investing in major fossil fuel projects.
The pipeline, currently under construction, is a key part of the Southern Gas Corridor. It is intended
to connect to infrastructure carrying gas from Azerbaijan’s giant offshore Shah Deniz II field to the Turkish-Greek border and on across Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea to southern Italy.
The EIB funding was approved by the bank’s
board along as part of a total of €6.5bn in of new financing for 36 projects in 17 EU countries and as well as projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
These also comprised funding for renewable energy investments including a new 17MW wind farm in Austria, a hydropower plant on the Nenskra river in Georgia and medium-sized renewable energy projects across Africa.
The bank said its decisions reflected the “EIB’s commitment to support both renewable energy and strengthen security of energy supply”. Its February 6 statement noted that the TAP project was a strategically important component within the EU’s energy policy.
In December, the EIB decided to delay its decision on a €1.5bn loan for the TAP, with a spokesperson
Welded steel pipes are lowered into trenches on the TAP route in northern Greece.
telling bne IntelliNews that the delay was because TAP was a “large project with a number of due diligence issues that merits proper discussion”.
The news of the delay broke on the day of the One Planet Summit at which dozens of major inter- national financial institutions, including the EIB, affirmed their commitment to the fight against climate change, but according to the EIB spokes- person this was coincidental. The World Bank an- nounced on the same day it would end funding for oil and gas exploration and gas extraction projects.
Several environmental groups have criticised
the EIB’s decision to fund TAP, claiming in a joint statement that the Southern Gas Corridor “could be as emissions-intensive or even more so than coal power” and detrimental to the EU’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The TAP project was the subject of additional contro- versy when it was later revealed that top European Commission officials had been lobbying the two de- velopment banks to extend financing for the pipeline infrastructure between Azerbaijan and Europe.
Miguel Arias Canete, the EU's climate change and energy commissioner, and Maros Sefcovic, vice president of the European Commission, were found to have sent a letter to the EIB and the EBRDurging them to finance a gas pipeline running from Azerbaijan to Europe, Climate Home Newsrevealed on November 27.
The European Commission released the letter, which was dated July 13, 2017, under freedom of information laws. In it, Arias Canete and Sefkovic