Everything is moving very quickly in the energy sector. The Lisbon Treaty explicitly includes a common European energy policy; if it were in force, everything would be simpler and clearer. The citizens, however, who took on the frightful responsibility of blocking this treaty, are not succeeding in blocking progress in European cooperation in this domain, despite the partial legal loophole, because the EU institutions and most member states' political leaders are aware of the need to take common action.
Two very significant meetings are taking place in May: the EU-Russia summit on 21-22 May in Siberia and the “Southern Gas Corridors” meeting preceding it on 8 May in Prague. The latter is responsible for three southern gas pipeline projects, an essential component in Europe's future energy supplies. Debates will partly focus on the same projects and strategies. Europe is striving to diversify its sources of energy and their supply routes so that they are not excessively dependent on transit through Russian territory. The authorities in Moscow have a double-edged strategy: conserve territorial exclusivity as much as possible when supplying the EU, not only with gas from Russia but also from other zones or countries from the former USSR and, to achieve this end, buy up the gas for the European market from producer countries so that it can itself sell the gas onto to the EU. These are colossal and long-term operations.
Russia's advantage. Russia has a huge advantage over the EU: the unity of its decision-making authority, because everything depends on the Kremlin, Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev. In the EU, however, there is not (yet?) a common policy and some member states sometimes play a “national game” of bilateral agreements with Moscow. It is in light of this situation that the ongoing and large-scale manoeuvres and the quite agitated preparations for the two summits mentioned above should be seen.
Uncertainties. The Prague summit on the three southern corridors is still surrounded by uncertainty. EU participants at the summit include the Czech prime minister, Mr Topolánek - the president (for a few more days) of the European Council, the president of the Commission, Mr Barroso and the high representative, Mr Solana. There will also be observers and ambassadors from member states. Representing the third countries will be official club members: Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. There will also be observers from Egypt, Iraq and Uzbekistan. The presidency also invited three additional but important observers: Russia, Ukraine and the US. Will they actually turn up? We'll soon find out.
The objective is to provide a new boost to the three projects that aim to consolidate and expand gas supplies from this enormous area: the well-known Nabucco project; the ITFI project (link between Azerbaijan-Turkey-Greece-Italy, with Bulgaria as a candidate); the South Stream project, a gas pipeline project for joining Russia up to the EU via the North Sea. The first two projects have a project of European interest status because they include new sources of supply. This status implies a certain level of Community funding. The South Stream project has aspirations to achieve this status and is the result of an agreement between Gazprom and ENI (Italy). Companies from several other countries are involved in it: EU member and candidate countries - Austria, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia.
“Nabucco problems”. There are a number of problems with the oldest and most ambitious project, Nabucco. To be economically viable, it has to obtain supplies from Iraq and Iran, as well as the suppliers that are already on board. Its completion therefore depends not only on political developments in Iraqi Kurdistan but also on relations between Iran and the West. Let's not forget the efforts already mentioned by Russia to buy up the gas itself from the region in question and re-export it to the EU. It appears that negotiations between Moscow, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are making progress.
It looks like the Prague summit on the Southern Corridors will be a very complicated affair.
A promising summit. The EU-Russia summit is preceded this very Thursday in Moscow by a meeting of the Permanent Partnership Council on Energy (see following pages in this edition). In the meantime, Mr Medvedev has announced an alternative draft to the international energy charter and has confirmed that his country will never ratify the current draft (EUROPE 9886) and his minister for foreign affairs, Mr Lavrov, has provided a Russian view of the situation (EUROPE 9892). If we add aspects of a purely foreign policy nature (missiles, Georgia, etc) we can presume that the two days will prove to be a rather bumpy ride. (F.R./transl.rh)