Interview 180: The Future of Natural Gas Supply to Europe

Michael Emerson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, which is an independent think-tank focused on probing European Union issues through research, debates and publications. During part of a 20-minute interview on February 21, 2011, Emerson discussed Europe's dependence on natural gas from the east, the current status of planned pipelines to deliver natural gas and Germany's role in the energy game with Russia.

Northstream, Nabucco and Southstream are three proposed pipelines that could deliver natural gas and oil to western Europe along routes running under the Baltic Sea to Germany, across Turkey to the Balkans and under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. The projected goal by the European Union and its neighbors is to diversify the sources of energy resources, thereby bypassing troubled transit routes of natural gas from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine. Emerson discusses in particular the current status of Nabucco and how Germany played a significant role in stepping back to allow the project to take shape.