by Judy Dempsey
09-03-06
Russia took centre stage in European energy discussions as the European Union
urged its 25 members to form an energy pact with Moscow, while Poland, once
again the renegade, presented an energy security plan that would exclude Russia,
one of the Continent's main suppliers.
Speaking in Brussels, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission,
said he would hold talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia later this
month on intensifying the EU's energy relationship with Moscow.
"We need a new partnership with Russia," Barroso said. "We are interdependent.
If we need a flow of energy from Russia, namely gas, I believe that it is also
in the interest of Russia to have a stable market and a stable relationship with
such an important customer as the European Union."
Barroso was speaking ahead of a European summit meeting later this month
where energy security will be a major topic. The issue has taken on added
urgency since a crisis in January, when the Russiangas giant, Gazprom, briefly
cut natural gas deliveries to Ukraine, creating shortages in Europe. The crisis
particularly upset Poland, Moscow's former satellite, which currently imports
two-thirds of its gas and 97 % of its oil from Russia.
In Berlin, the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, who is on a two-day visit,
presented German officials with a plan for easing Warsaw's current dependency on
Russia: a European energy security treaty that would create a new alliance of EU
and NATO nations centred on energy. The members would continue to receive energy
supplies from Russia, but would negotiate energy security among themselves.
At present, Europe has no common energy security policy. Contracts with
Russia are negotiated on a bilateral basis. The Polish plan was drawn up by the
office of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, prime minister in the country's new
conservative government, which has gone on a diplomatic offensive in EU and NATO
capitals to present the treaty. Signatories would provide assistance to another
member facing a crisis or shortage of supplies.
Polish officials said they wanted to win maximum support for the treaty, but
German officials and analysts were taken aback.
"All you have to look at is how much energy Russia supplies to Europe," said
Katinka Barysch, energy expert at the Centre for European Reform, a pro-
European research organization in London. "This shows you cannot exclude
Russia."
"The Polish view seems to be a contingency view," Barysch said. "If the EU
cannot reach a deal with Russia, then the Poles seem to be saying Europe needs
alternative plans. But it is clear several member states will not want to
exclude Russia. Germany has already made that clear to Poland."
German officials said in a private briefing that Russia -- which supplies
more than a quarter of Europe's energy needs -- could not be marginalized over
an issue as crucial as energy security. There was no immediate reaction from
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who held talks with Kaczynski.
Germany and Poland have generally had good relations, although the Poles have
rattled their European partners since Kaczynski took office in December by
challenging the EU on a range of issues, including privatization and competition
policy.
Germany forged very close energy contacts with Russia under former Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder, culminating in an agreement last year to build the North
Europe Pipeline. The pipeline, which will be built jointly by Gazprom and the
two German energy giants, Wintershall and E.ON Ruhrgas, will allow Russia to
send its gas directly to Europe, bypassing Poland and the Baltic states, which
sharply criticized Schroeder for arranging the deal behind their backs. Germany
already imports 35 % of its gas from Russia.
Poland's proposal takes note of Gazprom's energy dominance in Europe, as well as
other factors that have destabilized European supplies. It recalls that Gazprom,
a state-owned energy monopoly, cut off supplies to Belarus in 2004 over transit
costs.
“In 2003, it notes, technical deficiencies in the electricity systems between
Switzerland and France resulted in a blackout in northern Italy.
"In such situations," says the strategy paper, "we need to have a mechanism that
would allow us to assist the countries affected in a fast, effective and
coordinated manner."
The Polish treaty would have four main elements:
-- A mutual energy-security guarantee clause under which signatories would support each other "in the event of a threat to their energy security from natural or political causes." These guarantees would be modelled on NATO's Article 5 in which member states are obliged to come to the assistance of any that is in danger.
-- Members would build a technical infrastructure to allow cooperation if energy supplies to a member states were restricted. These include developing the infrastructure for transporting, transmitting and storing energy.
-- Members would focus much more on diversification of energy sources and transportation. There would be a ceiling to limit dependency on particular sources of energy. (Poland and other new member states say the EU is becoming too dependent on Russia as its source for gas.)
-- The alliance would be "open to all member states of either the European
Union or NATO," making it automatic that Russia would be excluded.
Countries outside the treaty could join at a later stage provided they would
assist any of the member states that were in need and would build and develop
the technical infrastructure for such cooperation. Poland has already started
lobbying NATO, particularly the United States, to grant Ukraine a "membership
action plan" in order to start anchoring it into the Euro-Atlantic community.
That would make Ukraine eligible to join the energy treaty.
Barroso said in Brussels that Europe should refuse "any kind of nationalism"
in the energy sector.
He, too, said that the EU must diversify its energy supplies, and that it should
consider stockpiling gas for times of crisis.
Source: International Herald Tribune