A simple list. Unsurprisingly, the European Council to open this Thursday afternoon will be dominated by the economic and financial crisis. The energy dossier will not be absent from the agenda; indeed, it will be the first point dealt with, but no in-depth debate is planned. The draft conclusions prepared by the Presidency go no further than to indicate the priority objectives: to define a crisis mechanism; to prepare a third "package" to complete the single market in this field (to be negotiated with the European Parliament); and to call on the Commission and the member states to present "operational initiatives" for the priority connections (South Stream gas pipeline, effective interconnections with the Baltic region, Mediterranean network, gas and electric interconnection between South East Europe and Central Europe). On top of this, there will be an explicit appeal to the EU to sing from the same hymn sheet when it discusses energy with third countries, and an invitation to the Commission to propose an operational mechanism, by the end of June, for access to gas from the Caspian Sea.
As you can see, this is as much a list of priorities and wishes as anything else. And even so, each item implies fundamental political questions which will go a long way further than the specific field of energy; the overlap between the energy aspects and political aspects, and even with the cultural ones, to an extent, is too great to allow them to be separated. Furthermore, the United States is closely involved in several dossiers.
Russia, Iran, Nabucco, etc. Let's just look at the case of Russia. For the EU, it is now, and will be even more so in the future, its number one provider of gas and a main supplier of oil. Energy negotiations are highly complex in themselves: the Energy Charter (which Moscow rejects, but the principles of which must be safeguarded), the path of the gas pipelines, Russia's offer to help to supply the Nabucco pipeline (even if its route avoids Russian territory), Gazprom's direct access to the European market and so on. But these dossiers are related to essential political issues, such as the nature of relations with Ukraine, Georgia, etc and, even more so, America's intentions regarding the anti-missile shield (which, as we know, directly involves Poland and the Czech Republic) and resumption of relations with Iran, which may render this shield superfluous or unjustified.
Iran, incidentally, is a major element of the Nabucco dossier. As all operators know, and have acknowledged, this colossal project will only be viable if it includes Iranian gas. However, the (extremely desirable) resumption of euro-Iranian relations depends on the initiative of the American president, which in turn depends more on Moscow's attitude than on Europe's. The Nabucco project has raised doubts (it has even been described as a beautiful dream), and Turkey is relaunching it, whilst stressing its importance for energy supply to the EU and for cooperation between the EU and Turkey; but political, and even cultural, aspects are involved, because it is Turkey which is preventing French operators from becoming involved in the consortium of this project, due to the fact that... the French Senate used the term genocide in relation to the Armenian incident of last century. What a mishmash!
Nuclear energy. The dossier on nuclear energy is, first and foremost, technological and environmental in nature, but purely political aspects are vital, even if the military aspect is left to one side. Suffice it to mention: a) the agreement between Siemens and the Russian colossus in this field (replacing cooperation with France's Areva). This gave rise to a reaction of deep concern from the MEP Alain Lamassoure, who sees this as jeopardising Franco-German cooperation; b) the presence of Russian nuclear in Iran (a power station is to start producing energy in a few months' time).
Reinforcing the common energy policy. The above list could be made an awful lot longer. The Iberian peninsula, the Baltic states, Slovakia and Bulgaria all have insufficient levels of connection within the EU. Other countries of Eastern Europe continue to depend entirely on Russian supply. The conclusion is clear: the heads of government must hold, as soon as possible, the highly political debate which they have decided to avoid this time. All of this means that a reinforcement of the common energy policy, as provided for by the Lisbon Treaty, is absolutely vital. I do not know whether the president of the European Council would still say that the Treaty of Nice is better than the Lisbon Treaty. The requirement, which he himself has acknowledged, for the EU to talk "energy" with a single voice when it discusses the subject with third countries, obviously presupposes the requirement for the institutions and Community procedures to be reinforced. Has Mr Topolánek worked this out?
(F.R./transl.fl)