Where will the Green Paper take us?

"It makes sense to have a common energy strategy for Europe," European Commission President Jos�anuel Barroso told a midnight press conference at the spring EU summit (23-24 March). Heads of state and government at the meeting agreed with him and broadly backed ideas put forward in a Green Paper on a common EU energy policy.

Making sense of the proposed common energy policy is, however, something else altogether.

Speakers at a European Voice conference last Thursday (23 March) explained what it meant to them and why the EU should care.

Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said a common policy meant 25 EU countries looking out for each other.

While some member states rely more heavily on energy imported from outside the EU, he said, the Union should try to end a situation in which "one country can say: 'We don't have a problem, we have other energy supplies'. In a common market, in a common Europe, it shouldn't be like this".

In the event of a supply crisis, brought on by either a natural disaster or political and economic decisions outside Europe, he said there "should be clear assurance that we...have the capacity to support supply. Each member state should be aware that if there is a particular situation it will be supported".

The Green Paper suggests getting member states to share national gas and oil reserves in the event of a supply crisis - an idea governments rejected on Thursday night at the summit.

For Polish centre-right MEP Jerzy Buzek, a European energy policy should also mean using European energy. "We do not use our own energy sources on a wide scale, they could give us more self-sufficiency," he explained, suggesting coal and nuclear power as indigenous supplies.

"We started as a European Union 56 years ago as a union of energy," he reminded the audience, adding that now, as then, Europe was "trying to respond to a crisis".

A common energy policy should also, according to Buzek, be about agreeing "a common position in negotiations with our main oil and gas supplies".

The Green Paper has been widely interpreted as focusing attention on external rather than internal energy problems: namely the EU's heavy dependence on Russia for gas imports.

Supply disruption at the start of the year, first because of a dispute between Moscow and the Ukraine and then because of an unusually cold winter in Russia, had a knock-on effect on EU supplies.

Russia agreed this month to build two new gas pipelines to China, becoming one of the Asian country's main suppliers within the next ten years.

Despite assurances from Moscow that the necessary investments will be made to meet the demands of both old and new customers, the announcement has made Europe worry about the future of its own supplies.

Speaking at the conference, Vladimir Chizhov, the Russian ambassador to the EU, said Russia was unlikely to have to choose between supplying Europe or Asia "in the foreseeable future".

"It is of course possible that our great-great-great grandchildren might live to see us run out of oil and gas altogether, nothing is unlimited. Happily, by that time mankind will be able to supply new sources of energy - nuclear being the most probable."

Since publishing the Green Paper, the Commission has also stressed the importance of getting Russia to ratify the Energy Charter, a treaty drawn up in the early 1990s to improve international energy co-operation.

Chizhov said ratification was not likely any time soon, saying it was a "very complicated issue... certain issues still have to be resolved, for example a bilateral agreement [between the EU and Russia] on trade in nuclear materials".

Europe had, he pointed out, agreed to come forward with a deal by the end of 1997. "This has not happened....we adhere to [the Energy Charter] provisions...But it will take additional effort on the part not only of Russia before ratification is possible."

He added that "if the EU manages to complete a single energy market it would be quite compatible with Russia's own interests, provided that the rules of the game are not dictated by the principle of the least common denominator".

Stefan Singer from WWF, the conservation group, said a common EU energy policy had to listen to Europeans.

"We have to respect the wants of the people... The tendency in most EU countries is not pro-nuclear," Singer said, adding that "nuclear is also bloody expensive - we tend to forget that point."

A renewables-based energy policy could, he said, be good news for the economy: "Countries like Denmark and Finland that have moved with renewables are doing pretty well economically."

Europe should also use a common energy policy to help non-EU countries develop along green lines, said Singer. While Russia is promising China new gas supplies, Europe could "help China by promoting hydro power".

Article features comments on the European Commission's recently adopted Green Paper on energy and the debate on external energy dependency, especially on imports of fossil fuels from Russia.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'A Common EU Energy Policy'

• Primary Source

European Commission: DG Energy and Transport: Energy: The Green Paper 'Energy' http://ec.europa.eu/energy/strategies/2006/2006_03_green_paper_energy_en.htm

---