International relations in Europe are now entering a period of flux as the legacy of the cold war wanes and the "outsider" countries, notably Russia and Turkey, are rethinking their mutual relations as well as their place in the world.

8 % of worldwide gas reserves are located on the African continent. Its relative economic weakness and the almost total absence of gas networks leads to a very reduced interior consumption (almost nonexistent outside Algeria and Egypt) which permits an important export capacity of the continent’s gas. Linking Sub-Saharan-Africa and the European Union (EU) with a gas pipeline thus is a reasonable project in economic terms.