Iran and Future European Union Gas Supply: Sociolinguistic Element of Iranian Gas Export Media Debate

Abstract

While Iran possesses one of the biggest gas reserves in the world, Iranian media debate about gas export has been concentrated around the gas pipe line strategy. On the other hand, Iran is not even yet a gas export country despite having such big gas reserves and this begs the question as to why Iran has not been successful in providing European Union with gas. Our research deals with this question and explains the future prospect of Iran-European Union cooperation in energy sector. Our main hypothesis in this research is then formulated as follows: Iranian media has been mostly captured by pro-pipe line officials who see great fortune in the possible economic benefits for them in this. However, for petroleum products, as long as Iran enjoys good relationship with Europe, it can play an important role in the oil sector. In fact, we will show that the linguistic aspect is vital as it help depict a different picture for the general public, bringing about different expectation among the youth and nationalists. Finally, we also discuss the LNG gas export possibility and the economic reasoning behind its future exploitation in Iran.