(BRUSSELS) - Despite efforts to diversify its energy suppliers, the European Union is struggling to reduce its dependence on Russian gas as Moscow repeatedly outmanoeuvres the bloc, analysts said.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said last week that an energy cooperation deal with Iraq was at hand, with hopes gas could one day flow directly from the country to the EU once stability returns.

Against the backdrop of record energy prices, reducing the EU's dependence on Russian gas has become an obsession in the bloc's foreign policy following disputes between Russia and Ukraine, through which most Russian supplies must transit.

The bloc has been busy since November 2006 working on an energy partnership with Azerbaijan, inking an accord with Kazakhstan, reviving relations with Libya and working on a deal with Algeria.

But so far there has been "nothing more than a political will" and no concrete contracts, according to editorial manager of Paris-based magazine Arab Oil and Gas, Francis Perrin.

The only real progress to date was a promise earlier this month by Turkmenistan to supply the EU with 10 billion cubic metres of gas annually from 2009 through the Nabucco pipeline.

Nabucco, which is supposed to supply the bloc with gas from the Caspian Sea region by 2012-2013 while bypassing Russia, lies at the heart of the EU's diversification strategy.

But so far the project has "completely stalled" in the absence of guarantees that there will be enough gas flowing through it, stressed analyst Susanne Nies at the Brussels branch of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).

She looked on Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's promise to feed the pipeline with a sceptical eye.

"It's a joke, he's already sold his resources four times over to the whole world," Nies said.

Perrin takes a more nuanced view of the situation.

He said that the Turkmen promise marked "perhaps the first breaths" of the key project, in addition to the upward revision of estimated reserves in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field.

However, both analysts agreed that the EU is struggling to move its pawns forward while Moscow and Gazprom play a subtle game of using their financial muscle to strike back at various different points.

Russia "is negotiating with Algeria, Libya, and Nigeria about gas projects directed towards European markets even though the EU considered these countries as sources of diversification," Perrin said.

"It's a way of pulling the rug from under (the EU's) feet," he added.

Russia has also managed to cast doubt on the need for Nabucco with its South Stream pipeline project which is supposed to bring gas from the Caucasus region to Bulgaria, passing under the Black Sea on the way.

The fact that Italy is co-developing the project shows once again that the EU "does not always speak with one voice" to Moscow about energy," Nies said.

The same goes for the Russian-German North Stream pipeline project which is supposed to bring Russian gas to Germany by passing underneath the Baltic Sea, much to the concern of the Baltic countries and Sweden.

Nies said that plans are being mooted to link up South Stream to Nabucco, providing the latter with a supply of gas but undermining its original purpose of bypassing Russia.

Under current estimates, by 2030 the EU will not be able to avoid becoming more dependent on Russia gas, which already in 2005 accounted for 46 percent of their imports, Nies said.

For Perrin, the dilemma facing the EU was less about reducing its dependence on Russian gas than "limiting the damages" and "trying not to increase it too much."

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