The Turkish parliament ratified an agreement with Russia on construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline. The issue did not provoked an intense dispute: 210 lawmakers out of 223 were in favor of the project implementation.
We should not forget that in countries with authoritarian regimes a parliament is nothing more than a decoration. Thus, if an agreement is backed up by the country leader, it will be flawlessly enacted within the shortest possible time. That’s what happened with the Turkish Stream project. In November, the presidents of Russia and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement on the beginning of construction, and in less than a month the parliaments of both countries almost unanimously adopted the law on ratification of the agreement. The Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Berat Albayrak announced that construction will start at the beginning of the next year. It is worth noting that, despite the common interest in this project, Turkey managed to get a substantial discount on the Russian gas.
The project envisages construction of two gas pipelines in the Black Sea. The first line is for supplying gas to the Turkish market, the second one, for transit of fuel to Europe. The pipeline’s offshore section is planned to be about 910 km with 180 km overland segment on the Turkish territory. The project is estimated at 11.4 billion euro.
