Conor here: As always the media is caught up in the geopolitical game, while ignoring corruption, profiteering, racism, and environmental disaster. In the case of US power and AI pushing into the Balkans, we get it all.
For example, Bosnia and Herzegovina expedited an amendment that excluded state-owned BH-Gas from the $1.5 billion pipeline project when it awarded the American company AAFS Infrastructure and Energy a non-competitive contract to build and operate the Southern Gas Interconnection with Croatia.
The director of AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is Jesse Binnall, a former member of the legal team of US President Donald Trump, and the Vice President Joseph Flynn is the brother of former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. US Department of Energy envoy Joshua Volz was in Sarajevo to press the government ahead of the vote.
American investors have also announced plans to build three gas-fired power plants along the pipeline, mainly to power data centers for American companies, and there is more US LNG on its way to the Balkans, which is far more carbon-intensive than local coal heating.
The EU is reportedly mad, not about any of these issues, but that the US is holding on to everything since its companies couldn’t bid on the pipeline project. Either way, it’s a bad deal for the people of the Balkans and the environment.
By Rikard Jozwiak, RFE/RL’s Europe editor in Prague, focusing on European Union and NATO coverage. Originally published in RFE/RL.
Since US President Donald Trump took office last year, Washington and Brussels have clashed over trade, support for Ukraine and military spending. Now there is a new battlefield: the Western Balkans.
Uniquely positioned at the crossroads of the EU and the US, as well as the influence of Russia and China, countries in the region have attracted the attention of the world’s major powers, starting a race to capitalize on their emerging status, vulnerability, and weak economies.
Nowhere is it more apparent than in the recent deals by US investors on energy projects in Albania, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, countries looking to end their reliance on Russian supplies.
“President Trump is opening a new era of cooperation with Southern, Central and Eastern Europe,” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters at the Three Seas Initiative business forum in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The clash of agendas was highlighted last week when the United States made the biggest public investment in years in the Western Balkans, including several multibillion-dollar deals for gas exports and AI development in Albania, Bosnia and Croatia.
The centerpiece is the $1.5 billion Southern Interconnection pipeline project between Bosnia and Croatia, linking the former to the Croatian liquefied natural gas terminal on the island of Krk and wider pan-European gas networks.
“It’s clear that this is a high-stakes region as well, and the more you over-declare, the more you invite them back – from Moscow, from Beijing, even from parts of Europe,” a Congressional aide familiar with the negotiations told RFE/RL.
Added another: “The strategy is to move money and projects faster than politics can react. If you frame everything as a geopolitical competition, you bring it down. If you call it investment and infrastructure, it moves.”
Pipe Dreams
Bosnia, one of the poorest countries in Europe, needs transportation, and fast.
It is currently completely dependent on Russian fossil fuels imported through the TurkStream pipeline.
The most important thing is that the Krk terminal is the main route for American Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to the European continent and the agreement, which was signed by the United States, will ensure that more US energy arrives in the region.
The Balkan countries seem to be turning to the United States after years of failing to get the financial support they need from Europe.
“Low investment has long plagued the Balkans,” according to David J. Kostelancik, non-resident Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), who says “energy security in Southeast Europe is no longer an economic problem — it’s a core US national security concern.”
“By focusing on lobbying and facilitating financing…the US can increase investment in the energy sector that increases competition and ensures security, including cybersecurity and investment screening methods that expose malicious actors’ attempts to gain influence.”
Both Brussels and Washington support removing the Balkans from Russia’s center of power. But energy policy now bleeds into the race for influence, combining these two topics.
To pave the way for the operational agreement, Bosnia amended the law to appoint an American private company – AAFS Infrastructure and Energy – as the main investor and developer.
According to the disclosure of the company and the project, the director of AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is Jesse Binnall, a former member of the legal team of the US President Donald Trump, and the Vice President Joseph Flynn is the brother of the former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
The new law meant there was no open tender process, angering Brussels and prompting Transparency International to warn of a “dangerous precedent” being set.
In a letter written on April 13, the EU ambassador in Sarajevo, Luigi Soreca, warned that the law adopted specifically for the gas pipeline project (lex specialis) could jeopardize Bosnia’s access to the European energy market, as well as 1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) in funding under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans.
The Balkan country is part of Brussels’ Energy Community, which extends its rules in this sector to EU hopefuls in the region. While Sarajevo is an EU candidate country from 2022, there is no indication that it will join the club anytime soon as Brussels often complains about the lack of internal reforms.
Bosnian officials also said their agreement with American investors comes in an effort to help move forward toward the bloc’s goal of ending all energy purchases from Russia by January 1, 2028.
That is a tall order for Bosnia, which has no gas production of its own and is entirely dependent on Russia, which supplies it with 225 million cubic meters of gas a year.
With EU membership prospects looking distant, Bosnia seems to have chosen to ignore Europe’s warning to “consider carefully its obligations” when signing energy project contracts, and continue with American investment.
Bosnia even joined the US plan to boost energy supplies to the region with its foreign minister, Elmedin Konakovic, telling RFE/RL’s Balkan Service that it is “economically important for the country.”
“This part of Europe is returning to intelligence, the path to success is more, not less power,” Wright said.
US economic interest in the region was also boosted by the adoption by Congress in February of the “Western Balkans Democracy and Development Act,” which among other things commits the United States to strengthening economic cooperation.
Last week, the capital of Kosovo, Pristina, hosted the American Investors Summit with the aim of attracting US businesses to invest in many projects, such as a new bus station and hospital in the city, the construction of a ring road, and many sports infrastructure areas.
The US investment group Pantheon Atlas has written a letter of intent with its local partner Koncar Group to build a $58 billion AI and data development center in central Croatia next year with a planned electricity capacity of 1 billion gigawatts.
Meanwhile in Tirana, Albania signed a 20-year framework agreement for the supply of American LNG, worth $6 billion, linking local energy supplier Albgaz with American company Venture Global and Greek company Aktor.
Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the expectation is that there could be more announcements, though no specifics were provided.
They added that while the focus is on Albania, Bosnia, and Croatia, there is a strong sense that the new policy is intended to be regional.
Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro are all seen as logical next steps if the initial projects stick, especially as Washington tries to build a more integrated energy corridor and digital corridor across the Western Balkans.
