Brussels, 07/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - "The Energy Charter and the European Union/Russia partnership on energy, recently launched by Romano Prodi, are fully complementary", Henning Christophersen, President of the Energy Charter Conference, insisted in Brussels on Thursday during the twice-yearly meeting of the conference. Ria Kemper, Secretary General for the Charter, stated "we are watching the Prodi initiative with great interest and we feel that we have something to offer since the framework of the Charter is not only very broad, opening up to the questions of energy saving for example, but also binding since the signatories are linked by the Charter Treaty". The Energy Charter Treaty was signed in 1994 by fifty countries, including some beyond the European continent, to ensure energy market security, mainly with Russia and Eastern Europe. "As a multilateral body, we can provide a framework and serve as an instrument for any bilateral initiative conducted by one of our members", added Ms Kemper.
The Secretary General for the Charter said, moreover, that she was relatively optimistic about the possibility of Russia ratifying, in 2001, the Treaty signed six years ago. After their meeting in Moscow with the Duma representatives, and those of the government and of industry (mainly Gasprom), Ria Kemper and Henning Christophersen felt that there is, within the new Duma, a determination to continue ratification work. Ms Kemper hoped the Duma would deal with this matter "during its spring session". It would be an important step for the Charter, she stressed, recalling that Japan and Australia make their ratification conditional upon that of Russia. The Charter secretariat announced during the Conference that the parliaments of Turkey, Bosnia Herzegovina and Poland have approved ratification of the Charter, but that these countries must still submit ratification instruments. The prospect of welcoming China and the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) as observers seems to be taking shape.
The Energy Charter Conference adopted a new timetable for the conclusion of negotiations on energy transit, which was initially to have been concluded before the end of this year. The negotiations could be concluded in principle in April or May 2001, after three further rounds of negotiation. The aim is to adopt the transit protocol during the Energy Charter Conference on 10 and 11 September 2001, said the Chair of the negotiating group, Helga Steeg, who said she felt "quite optimistic". Negotiations mainly relate to the setting in place of a dispute settlement body, access to capacities, transit tariffs, the ban on deflecting energies while on transit, etc. They seem to be mainly stumbling over the question of pricing. "The problem is to find a common approach in this field between countries that have years of accounting practice or different tariffs", explained Ms Steeg. It is also a question of reconciling the divergent positions of producer, consumer and transit countries, she added.