title: Samtskhe-Javakheti Region: A Neglected Keypoint for European Security of Energy Supply?*
abstract: It is no doubt that therise of new energy actors in post-Soviet geographic space such as Azerbaijan,Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan was welcomed by Western power centers. Thoseemerging actors were assessed as partners in diminishing Europe’s energydependence to a single supplier; the Russian Federation. In this context, themain Western initiatives to challenge Russian energy dominance regarding theCaspian Basin were the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, and SouthCaucasus gas pipeline. These t