By Roland Siegloff, DPA,
Brussels : Section 9 of this week’s European Union (EU) summit declaration on Georgia was kept markedly short. In the light of the recent crisis in the Caucasus, the two sentences nevertheless contain an important message for European leaders.
“Recent events illustrate the need for Europe to intensify its efforts with regard to the security of energy supplies,” it said. The Council of Ministers and the European Commission ought to examine ways to diversify energy sources and supply routes, it added.
“The summit’s decision will strengthen and accelerate the policy we have launched,” EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said after the meeting.
Piebalgs plans to present his revised strategy for Europe’s energy policy by early November. His spokesman Ferran Tarradellas pointed out that the Commission raised the alarm in 2000 when it warned that Europe had to reduce dependence on energy imports.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed at the Brussels meeting that new energy resources were needed. “No one who spoke at the meeting ignored that,” said Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk after the talks Monday night. Both Germany and Poland are highly dependent on Russian energy supplies.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 39 percent of Germany’s natural gas and 32 percent of its oil needs in 2006 were met by Russia.
In Poland, the figure is considerably higher – 46 percent for gas and 90 percent for oil. Elsewhere, the situation is even more extreme. EU members like Slovakia or Lithuania obtained their entire gas imports and also almost 100 percent of their oil from Russia.
Dependence on Russian gas is just as high in Estonia, Finland and – to a lesser extent – in Bulgaria.
But oil is also shipped to Europe from other continents. For gas, the EU is expanding imports from two other major suppliers, Norway and Algeria.
The Nabucco pipeline from Austria to Turkey is intended to provide a gas link towards the Caspian Sea, Iran and via Syria as far as Egypt. Work on the pipeline is earmarked to begin later this year and be finished by 2012. This project is part of the reason why the EU has a strong strategic interest in Georgia.
Every pipeline that avoids Russian soil and control is welcomed in Europe. But diversification can also mean something else, as it emerged from the Brussels talks.
“While the geographic location of pipelines was a topic of discussion, some participants took the opportunity to emphasize the necessity of diversification – and that also includes nuclear energy,” one summit participant said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, has long been lobbying for France’s nuclear industry. The EU Commission officially leaves nuclear politics to the member states and wants to promote diversification via renewable energy, said Piebalgs’ speaker Tarradellas.
Spain was increasingly using solar power instead of gas for heating, he added. Wind energy also helped reduce dependency on imports.
Top priority, though, was energy efficiency, Tarradellas said. “It is much better for us to invest in double glazing than in natural gas.”