Baku-Tbilisi-Kars: Regional Implications and Perspectives

Abstract

There has been strong consensus that the development of a transport system involving EaP and EU countries may enable beneficial economic and political cooperation. Considering the importance and relevance of the topic for current academic literature and policy agendas, this paper contains analyses of different countries’ perspectives in the context of economic as well as political outcomes. The first section, the Literature Review, has been dedicated to an exploration of railway transportation in general and a discussion of different perspectives on the BTK project in particular. The second section presents a fiscal analysis of participating countries, to calculate the varying expenditures for the project, whilst the third section discusses the economic benefits of the project in a comparative way. Finally, the last part of the paper is dedicated to examining the political implications of the corridor not only for the participating members of the BTK project, but also for countries that may have interests in joining the project or have an indirect political stake, given the largescale impact of the project