Energy security in Europe:

date: 2008-08-21 11:47:15 | Energy, security, Europe:

The war in Georgia puts energy security back on Europe’s agenda

OFFICIALLY, the European Union is no more worried about the closure of two oil pipelines running through Georgia than are the world’s oil traders, who have so far shrugged off the news. After all, less than 3% of Europe’s oil imports come from Azerbaijan via Georgia, according to the European Commission, and none of its gas. The commission plans to do no more than “monitor the situation closely”.

Yet the Eurocrats, complains one European diplomat, are not looking at recent events in the Caucasus “with their energy spectacles on”. Some of his colleagues certainly suspect that a principal Russian motive for invading Georgia was to highlight its vulnerability as a transit route for oil and gas. European countries have long dreamt of securing access to gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan through a pipeline that crosses Georgia. That route would bypass Russia, which controls all the existing pipelines between Central Asia and the EU, and so leave less of Europe’s gas supply at Russia’s mercy. At the very least, the war in Georgia has highlighted the region’s instability, and thus the difficulty of this plan. ...

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date: 2008-08-21 11:47:15 |