Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Turkey signed the transit contract for the project for the gas pipeline “Nabucco”.

The contract was signed at the meeting of the prime ministers of the four EU countries and Turkey in Ankara. The European Commission President JosГ© Manuel Barroso also attended the ceremony.

The project is worth 7,9 billion euro and will start functioning by 2014. The planned capacity of the gas pipeline that will supply the countries from the Caspian region to Austria, is 31 billion cubic meters.

This is an enormous project; the estimated length of Nabucco is 3300 km. The pipes will cross all five countries that signed the contract in Ankara today. The countries under that contract agree to never disrupt this pipeline under any circumstance, summarizes K. Pfefer from Deutsche Welle.