The European Commission will propose €3.5 billion of funding for energy projects in the wake of this winter's gas dispute, including €250 million for the Nabucco pipeline, according to a draft, Reuters reported.
Bolstering the reliability of energy supplies has soared to the top of the bloc's agenda since Russia invaded Georgia last summer, coming close to a key gas supply route.
Europe received a further shock this month when a gas dispute between Russia and transit country Ukraine cut off supplies to Europe during freezing weather, forcing factories to close, leaving thousands of households shivering.
The draft paper, which is due to receive final approval today, included a proposal for funding worth €1 billion towards gas interconnectors to improve the ability of the EU's 27 states to help each other during gas crises.
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has been fiercely critical of the way the dispute was handled by Russia and Ukraine and has diverted the €3.5 billion of unused EU funds towards improving the EU's energy independence.
The plan also envisages €150 million of funding for the Skanled gas pipeline linking Poland, Denmark and Sweden and €100 million for gas interconnections between Italy and Greece.
The planned Nabucco project would bring central Asian gas to an Austrian gas hub, bypassing Russia, and has become central to the EU's ambitions, despite the fact that only a fifth of the gas needed to fill it has been secured.
Plans for a ring of electricity interconnections linking up Baltic countries will receive €275 million, out of a total €705 million to be spent on improving the EU power grid.
Wind power will receive a €520-million boost, with major investments in the Baltic region and the North Sea.
A North Sea wind power super-grid is one key plank of the EU's energy plans, linking up thousands of giant wind turbines with undersea cables in a way that reduces power fluctuations as weather fronts sweep across the region.
Innovative technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power stations, which will help them comply with future environmental standards, will receive €1.25 billion.
The funding has been earmarked for Poland's Belchatow power plan, Spain's Compostella, as well as projects in Germany, Britain and the Netherlands.
EU and Central Asian officials were meeting in Budapest yesterday to discuss the €10-billion Nabucco project, which envisages piping gas 3,300 kilometres from the Caspian region through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to a distribution hub in Austria.
Nabucco aims to meet five per cent of Europe's gas needs.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who holds the EU Union's rotating Presidency, said it was time for the bloc to move the project forward to reduce the continent's dependence on Russian gas and diversify supply.
Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, the conference host, said the EU should help finance Nabucco because it was an issue of national security and not a commercial project.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it was ready to consider giving a financial contribution to the Nabucco gas pipeline project.