US Pushes Vertical Corridor to Boost Eastern Europe Energy Security

On February 24, the multilateral meeting in Washington will discuss all critical aspects related to the activation of the Vertical Corridor. The main reason is to make the project commercially attractive, so that the flow of American LNG from Greek terminals can begin, through Romania and then to Ukraine and westward to Hungary and Slovakia. In the White House room – where US Secretaries of Energy and Interior, Chris Wright and Doug Burgum, will meet energy ministers from Vertical Corridor countries, as well as representatives of gas system operators and regulatory authorities to discuss how to remove current obstacles to its commercial operation – interest will focus on the presence of the European Commission, represented by Ditte Jørgensen, head of the Directorate-General for Energy. The EU position is considered crucial for financing infrastructure to increase capacity in the Bulgarian and Romanian systems and a new FSRU terminal, the second in Greece, with a total value of one billion euros, as well as for providing guarantees for long-term LNG supply contracts. However, the EU has stopped financing natural gas investments in recent years as part of its green transition policy, a decision that today threatens the continent's energy supply security with the exit of Russian gas from the market. Access to EU funds for the development of new natural gas infrastructure is considered a key issue for the security of supply for Eastern European countries, which continue to depend on Russian gas, absorbing about 17 billion cubic meters of gas annually, a volume that will reach 35 billion cubic meters with the end of the war in Ukraine, due to increased demand on the Ukrainian market. The EU, however, does not seem to engage in a discussion about lifting restrictions on financing natural gas infrastructure. "The EU does not intend to finance new fossil gas projects, as the network is already considered sufficiently developed, and the current TEN-E framework excludes such support. The Commission's assistance is mainly regulatory and institutional, not financial. The strategic priority is the reversal of the flow of the Trans-Balkan Corridor, not the Vertical Corridor as a whole," sources within the Commission told Kathimerini correspondent in Brussels, Alexandra Voudouri. The Trans-Balkan pipeline is the axis through which Russian gas reached southern Europe for decades via Ukraine to Bulgaria and Greece and east to Turkey, and since 2020, with the operation of TurkStream, it has been practically inactive. The EU has included this pipeline system (Trans-Balkan) in the eight energy highways, operating in reverse flow, meaning sending gas from south to north. The same system also forms the "backbone" of the Vertical Corridor, but its starting point is Greece, not Turkey, as in the case of the Trans-Balkan Corridor. The Vertical Corridor limits Turkey's influence in the region, unlike the Trans-Balkan, through which Turkey can send gas to Eastern Europe from its five operational LNG terminals. Conversely, the Vertical Corridor geopolitically strengthens Greece and its role in the region vis-à-vis Turkey, which is why there is also government pressure on the EU. "European governments and institutions...