... course also have fears connected with their dependence on Russian gas supplies. Russia
meets
about a third of the European Union’s gas needs, with Poland, Italy and Germany accounting for 60% of that amount. Germany, the biggest consumer in the European Union, buys 33% of Russian gas going to the EU. However, recent events show that these fears have not yet resulted in the West European energy sphere being totally dictated by politics. In spite of the tense relations between the EU and Russia and the “sanctions war,” in September 2015 Germany and France
signed an agreement
with Gazprom to build a 55 billion cubic metres ...
... Ties
After last weekend’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), economic activity by Western companies in Russia appears to have been reinforced. Among the attendees of the event, major European and American companies’ strong ... ... sphere contrasts with support for domestic companies to secure advantageous positions on the Russian market.
To this end, energy companies, including BP and Shell, have received consent from the British and Dutch governments to pursue joint ventures ...
... external energy policy is to ensure the security of Russian supplies and the positive dynamics of the political relations between Russia and the EU.
1
. European Commission. European Union Package COM (2015) 80. 25.02.2015
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:1bd46c90-bdd4-11e4-bbe1-01aa75ed71a1.... ....eu/en/meetings/european-council/2015/03/european-council-conclusions-march-2015-en_pdf/
3
. N. Kaveshnikov, EU Strategy for Climate and Energy Sector // Modern Europe Journal, 2015, # 1, p. 101
http://www.sov-europe.ru/2015/1/kaveshnikov2.pdf
4
. European council ...
... side, especially for the southern part. The main stumbling block is that the project did not – and does not – conform to the standards of the Third Energy Package ratified by the European Commission’s Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators with regard to European Union and third party states. More specifically, the European side was not satisfied with Russia’s unwillingness to allow other suppliers to use the project’s infrastructure, and the fact that Gazprom would be the main operator. All this despite the fact that Brussels had no qualms about making such demands while offering no financing ...
... absolutely groundless.
As far as the overall gas settlement is concerned, the heart of the matter seems to lie in the approach of the European Union. Fortunately, Brussels today is deeply involved in gas negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in contrast to 2006 and 2009, when the Europeans deliberately avoided any kind of participation in such processes. But nowadays they appear to be seriously worried about their own continuous gas supply during winter.
energy.sia-partners.com
REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
Yuri Borovsky:
Can Russia–EU–Ukraine Negotiations on Gas
Be Saved?
The ...
... disaster. Yuri Borovsky, Associate Professor, Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia at MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, comments on the situation.
What is the current state of energy contacts between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union?
Energy contacts between Russia, Ukraine and the European Union are in crisis and are being conducted on an ad hoc basis. Everything that has been achieved by Moscow and Brussels since 2000 as part of the Energy Dialogue has now essentially been frozen....
RIAC experts' comments
The crisis in Ukraine definitively marks a new stage in Russia-EU relations. What type of changes in the approaches of key EU countries towards Russia are on the horizon as well as what are the prospects for further developing the energy dialogue between Moscow and Brussels? We discussed the situation with Elena Ananyeva, Head of Center for British Studies at RAS Institute for European Studies and a member of the Editorial Board of the International Affairs magazine; Igor Kovalyov,...
... instead of war), and 2) were seen as an alternative to the Middle East, which was then the most unstable region in terms of energy geopolitics (“oil shocks” and so forth). In the 1990s and early 2000s, Europe closed its eyes to its energy dependence on Russia, expecting the country to become a kind of second Norway, i.e. a politically neutral energy resource base for the EU (Norwegian ... ... (according to the Ukrainian data, 86.1 billion metric tons in 2013 against 119.6 billion m3 in 2008), bypassing the latter.
Today the European Union is facing an unconventional choice. The first option is to “bury” the South Stream Project for the purpose ...
