French GDF pulls out of Nabucco project as a result of Ankara's "silent economic embargo"
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Zeynep Gurcanli
OluÅŸturulma Tarihi: Åžubat 21, 2008 14:02
The continuance of the "silent economic embargo" that Turkey has applied to France as a result of France's unchanging stance in recognizing Armenian claims of "genocide" has resulted in the French energy giant Gaz de France (GDF) pulling out of the Nabucco natural gas line project.
On an official visit to Ankara, French Minister Herve Novelli, who is responsible for France's Foreign Trade department, said GDF had decided not to be a part of the Nabucco project. "Turkey has made a decision. The choice to leave GDF outside the Nabucco project is a political one. Following this choice, GDF is no longer even going to apply to be a part of Nabucco. We are saddened by these developments", Novelli told reporters.   Â
In the meantime, diplomatic sources say GDF has "no chance left" in the natural gas bidding tenders in Ankara, and that instead the way has been opened for Russian giant Gazprom to pick up this contract.
France's lower house of parliament infuriated the Turks in 2006 by backing a bill that would make it a crime to deny that the 1915 events were "genocide". French Senate never ratified the bill. Ankara has opposed Gaz de France's involvement in a natural gas pipeline project because of the genocide bill. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also upset Turkey by opposing the large Muslim but secular nation's EU entry bid.
Last week, the European Union's coordinator for the proposed Nabucco pipeline said during a visit to Ankara that Gaz de France should not be excluded from the project, which aims to carry Caspian gas to Europe via Turkey and the Balkans. But Energy Minister Hilmi Guler described Nabucco as a done deal and noted that its partners had agreed on Germany's RWE as the sixth partner, eliminating Gaz de France.
The bitter political relations also hurt the trade between two countrie as exports from France to Turkey fell for the first time in years in 2007. Previously French exports to Turkey had been showing a steady annual increase of around 10%. In the meantime, with a drop in Turkish imports of French goods, both German and Italian exports to Turkey have seen a climb of around 17% in the past year.
According to experts, this noticable drop in trade with French can be linked with the tough stance by Turkish people towards France in the face of the so-called Armenian genocide issue, and in the face of Sarkozy's opposition to Turkish membership in the EU.               Â