The wording is the Commission's. The text was released under "check against delivery". "I can announce today a new international connectivity project. It will link the South Caucasus and Central Asia directly to the European market, what we call the Middle Corridor," von der Leyen said. "Through Global Gateway, we will aim to crowd in up to €12 billion in public and private investment. Our goal is to diversify routes, triple trade flows and slash freight transit times by 2030." The summit with Bulgaria's prime minister is the one instrument she named.
The number has a predecessor. On 29 January 2024 the Commission's investors' forum in Brussels announced a €10 billion commitment by European and international financial institutions to the Trans-Caspian corridor, described in the release as "a mixture of ongoing and planned investments", with the European Investment Bank signing €1.47 billion of memoranda with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the Development Bank of Kazakhstan, and the EBRD signing a memorandum with Kazakhstan on a €1.5 billion pipeline for the region. The target then was a Europe to Central Asia connection within 15 days. The 2030 target matches the World Bank's: its brief of April 2024 said a combination of investments and efficiency measures could triple trade flows along the corridor and halve travel times by 2030.
What is new on Wednesday is €2 billion of headroom and a Bulgarian summit, which puts the Black Sea end of the route in the frame. The speech names no project, no lender and no date.
Three prices were put on one corridor in a day, by three parties that do not lay track.
Yerevan's ruling reached the record the same day. "The Constitutional Court of Armenia has found the TRIPP agreement in conformity with the Basic Law," News.am reported at 12:57, citing the court's external relations department; the full text is to be published within three days and then sent to parliament for ratification. Its case sat on the court's docket for 15 September at 11:00, in written procedure. Signed in Washington on 1 June and in Yerevan on 4 June, the framework agreement creates a TRIPP Development Company held 74% by the United States and 26% by Armenia for 49 years. Baku dated the first physical work to 2027 on 9 September.
In Seoul, Tokayev's contribution was a map. "The Middle Corridor can be integrated with the TRIPP transport initiative," he told the summit session in Tengrinews's account, and proposed "an end-to-end transport and logistics chain from Korea through Central Asia to Europe". His figures: freight on the corridor up 5 times in 6 years, its capacity to be raised to 20 million tonnes, and a target of 100 million tonnes of transit through Kazakhstan.
The physical side did not move on Wednesday. Georgia's promise of 7 September is to double its ports by 2032 for about $7 billion, on 13.7 million tonnes handled in 8 months. The fall in the Caspian's level drew "serious concern for shipping" from the chairman of Azerbaijan Railways on 9 September. Tokayev's 20 million is capacity. His 100 million is a target. None of these is a lender's number, and the speech's €12 billion is a ceiling for money the Commission hopes others will bring.
Three prices were put on one corridor in a day, by three parties that do not lay track. Brussels priced it in crowd-in euros, with a date borrowed from the World Bank and a summit in place of a project list. Yerevan's court priced the American segment in constitutional terms, on a calendar where the construction date is Baku's. Astana priced the whole chain in transit tonnes it does not yet carry. The watch is short: the summit's date and host city; whether the €12 billion gets a project list, as the old €10 billion had in the 33 hard infrastructure needs of the EBRD's 2023 study; the National Assembly's calendar for the TRIPP bill once the decision's text is out; and the Caspian's draft, which no declaration deepens.