Czech Republic hails Southern Gas Corridor's role in Europe's energy security

By Trend

Czech Republic wants South-Eastern Europe to have the same level of energy security that it has, Foreign Minister of Czech Republic Tomas Petricek said in an interview with Trend.

In this regard, he emphasized the importance of the Southern Gas Corridor, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe.

"The Czech Republic has been involved with the Southern Gas Corridor from the very beginning - during our EU Presidency, we organized the Southern Corridor EU Summit on May 8, 2009. Being a country fully linked to the North-Western European gas market centered in Rotterdam where 100 percent of gas for our country is sold/bought (we have no long-term contract), we would like our EU friends in the South-Eastern part of the European continent to have the same level of energy security that we enjoy," said the foreign minister.

Talking about the energy cooperation between Czech Republic and Azerbaijan, Petricek noted that his country imports about one third of its oil from Azerbaijan via the Baku – Tbilisi – Ceyhan pipeline.

"It is oil that has made the Czech Republic, a geographically relatively distant country with size and population similar to Azerbaijan, the 5th biggest trade partner of your country. I think those figures are rather self-explanatory," noted the minister.

He also highlighted the role of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, which was constructed with active participation of Czech companies.

"The BTK railway corridor is key to Azerbaijan's efforts to become a transport hub which is essential not only to the diversification of your own economy but also to facilitating transport between Europe and the Asian continent which is, to be sure, not limited to China. This is obviously in the interest of the both of our countries, and it makes us the more proud of the good work done by Czech companies in the construction of this extremely important infrastructure project," added Petricek.