EC seeks to set up pan-European energy community: Lamoureux
Brussels (Platts)--26Apr2005
The European Commission plans to look at setting up a pan-European energy community, including Russia and Ukraine, its energy director general, Francois Lamoureux, said Tuesday. He told the European Parliament energy committee that the European Union and Russia's successful energy dialogue over the last five years was being considered as a model for talks with other countries. "The dialogue allowed us to get Russia to understand the EU internal energy market and the importance of respecting its rules," Lamoureux said. For example, through the dialogue the EU persuaded Russian gas company Gazprom to drop destination clauses in its long-term supply contracts with EU member states. "But our interdependency with Russia in areas such as competition, research and investment guarantees leads us to believe that we will have to think about a more institutionalized form for future talks." The idea for a pan-European energy community had been mooted by politicians since the 1990s, said Lamoureux, including by the last EC president, Romano Prodi. Lamoureux said that the EC still supported the Energy Charter Treaty--the international agreement which seeks to set legally binding rules for energy cooperation between signatories. "It is simply a political reality that Russia is not going to want to ratify it--and without Russia the ECT won't work," he said. "We're trying to see what kind of institutional structure between Russia and the EU would work. It would also make sense to bring in Ukraine as well as other consumer countries like the EU." The aim would be to find some way to get countries to observe at least part of the ECT rules, even if they won't adopt the entire treaty. The ECT promotes protecting foreign investment, free trade based on World Trade Organization rules, freedom of transit, energy efficiency and mechanisms to resolve disputes both between countries and between investors and countries. This story was first published in Platts real-time news and market reporting service Global Alert - http://www.globalalert.platts.com
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