The Nabucco Project Within the Context of Energy Supply Security and International Politics
The Nabucco Project is a project, which aims to transport rich natural gas resources of the Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East to the European market via Turkey. In this study, the Nabucco Project was evaluated within context of the energy supply security concept and international politics. Firstly, interdependence between national power and energy supply security was investigated. How oil and natural gas became strategic raw materials of world politics beyond being primary energy resources of the global economy was examined. It was found that discovery of rich oil and natural gas resources in the Central Asia and the Caucasus after the Cold War turned the region into a focus of interest of the global and regional actors. In this connection, perspectives of the global and regional actors about the Nabucco Project were examined.As a result of analyses and evaluations, it was concluded that the Nabucco Project is a project that can significantly enhance Turkey’s geopolitical importance and make Turkey one of the key countries of the east-west energy corridor.
Export, Energy Consumption and Economic Growth Inter-Linkages: The Case of Lithuania
Abstract This paper has aimed to examine the causal relationships between energy consumption – economic growth, export – energy consumption and export – economic growth in Lithuania during the period of 1998 – 2015. Descriptive statistics analysis and econometric techniques have been applied for this purpose. Granger causality test has been used to a time series data set to determine the causality between variables. The results of Granger causality test have shown unidirectional causality running from GDP to energy consumption, from export to GDP and from export to energy consumption. It is obvious that GDP and export play significant roles in accelerating energy consumption in Lithuania. The determination of the causal links between energy consumption – economic growth, export – economic growth and energy consumption – export has provided policy makers with the main insights to formulate future policy directions for sustainable economic development in Lithuania.
Financial Cooperation within the Black Sea Region: The Experience of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank
Over the last decade, most of the new independent states in the Black Sea region have staged steady and buoyant economic growth thanks to their rich natural resource endowments and to the positive attributes of their human resources. Such growth, supported by international financial institutions (IFI), has proved quite resilient to cyclical downturns in the global economy. Still, much of the region remains short of the physical and institutional infrastructure to create optimal conditions for long‐term income growth. These characteristics implicitly assign regional IFIs the tasks of providing long‐term development finance to key economic sectors and of establishing effective transmission mechanisms between ‘deficit’‐ and ‘surplus’‐generating sectors. This article seeks to highlight the role of the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank as a regional IFI in elevating and sustaining economic growth and development in the Black Sea region.