Hungary's government said Thursday it planned to organize a summit this year to give new momentum to the slow-moving Nabucco pipeline project, aimed at bringing gas to Europe while bypassing Russia.
"The Hungarian Prime Minister initiated a summit meeting with the participation of all the players in the Nabucco project: its shareholders, the transit countries and the supply countries," government spokesman David Daroczi said.
He was speaking after Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany paid a three-day visit to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan earlier this week.
The proposed Nabucco summit was to take place at the end of the year in Budapest, Daroczi added.
"We sense that Nabucco could be developing much faster," the spokesman explained.
"Apart from Hungary, no other partner in the project named a Nabucco ambassador to represent the country in negotiations."
Hungary, which presented in February a draft for an intergovernmental contract providing the framework for Nabucco, said it hoped the document could be signed by the end of 2008.
However, Budapest has expressed concern that recent negotiations over gas prices between Russia on the one hand, and Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the other, could endanger the project.
Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have been named as possible suppliers of gas for Nabucco, but the project is still seeking other suppliers.
Construction of the E.U.'s 3,300-kilometer pipeline, running from the Caspian Sea via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria, is scheduled to begin in 2009, with completion expected in 2013.
The consortium that aims to construct the project comprises Turkish state-owned energy company Botas, Hungarian oil and gas company MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU), Bulgaria's Bulgargaz, Romania's Transgaz (TGN.RO), Germany's RWE AG (RWEOY) and Austrian OMV AG (OMV.VI), each holding a 15% stake.
The pipeline will transport 31 billion cubic meters of gas to the E.U. from the Middle East and Asia in a bid to reduce the bloc's reliance on Russian supplies.