Think tank europe

Is Europe's energy security policy a reality or an ambition?
15/07/2010
Author : Security & Defence Agenda (SDA - Belgium)
SDA Report - Policymakers’ Dinner
 
Four years have passed since the EU was alerted by a European Commission Green Paper on the urgent need to secure its energy supplies, and two years since NATO’s Bucharest summit mandated the alliance to devise a strategy for energy security. Since then the pressures on oil and gas supplies have intensified, with European public opinion uneasily observing Russia’s refusal to deal directly with NATO. At the same time, there have been unsettling fluctuations in spot energy prices and a set back to the COP15 climate change summit in Copenhagen last December that has done nothing to reassure investors in renewable energies.

The EU’s new Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger promises a more determined policy push to address Europe’s imported energy dependence, the workings of its own internal energy market and the pressing question of environmental standards that still look very hard to attain. In February 2010, a new project to deliver Azerbaijani gas to Romania added itself to competitor projects like Nabucco and Nordstream. What are the energy implications for Europe of these potentially conflicting projects?

Can Europe’s citizens expect to see a determined new energy strategy that will help to allay security concerns? Or will the Barroso II commission deliver a package that is more reminiscent of earlier ones that turned out to be statements of ambition rather than of effective new policies?

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Sunday, 12 February 2012
Europe's World - AUTUMN 2011 - #19
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