Brussels, 02/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is proposing to approve, on Wednesday, in Strasbourg, its communication intended for the Biarritz Summit concerning the oil crisis and the energy situation. In addition to the well-known aspects (dialogue with OPEC, diversification of supply sources, energy saving, development of alternative energies, possibility of using oil reserves, etc.), the communication will insist that the circles close to the Commission will call on the "Prodi Plan" for energy partnership with Russia. It is a question of using in the best possible way the complementarity that exists between the EU and Russia. The latter has large oil and especially gas reserves that it only partially uses. The EU needs these resources and at the same time it is able to provide installations and equipment that would allow Russia to use its available resources better.
Last Friday, at lunch at the Ecofin Council, Romano Prodi informed the finance ministers of this plan. He had spoken of this earlier with Chancellor Schröder before he went to Moscow, to suggest that this project should be discussed in talks with Mr Putin. The latter then held a long conversation with Mr Prodi on the phone, and it appeared that Russia is clearly interested in this proposal. The preliminary studies and conversations should therefore become intensified as rapidly as possible.
The aim is simple. The EU is already the main importer of Russian oil and gas. This seller/buyer relationship should be changed into a long term partnership, with contracts lasting 20 years or more on the provision of gas from one side and the provision of equipment from the other. The operation is particularly complex. Private operators must be involved, as well as transit countries, for obvious reasons that are not only political but also technical (capacity of gas pipelines) and concerning legal security. All this will require indepth and lengthy negotiation. The first step will be political endorsement on the part of Heads of State and Government in Biarritz, on 13 and 14 October.