An agreement between Brussels and Moscow on the EU Energy Charter is difficult and cannot be reached at once, a European Commission energy official said on May 2. “Who was expecting an agreement on the Energy Charter? The Energy Charter is a question that has been hanging on for almost 10 years,” Ferran Tarradellas Espuny, spokesman for EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, told New Europe.

He was commenting on the results of the fourth EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council on Energy in Moscow on April 30. Piebalgs, Minister of Trade and Industry of the Czech Presidency Martin Riman and Minister for Enterprise and Energy and Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Maud Olofsson met the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin and the Russian Minister of Energy Sergei Shmatko in Moscow to discuss in particular latest developments in the EU-Russia energy dialogue and other issues, including energy efficiency, synchronisation of the two electric systems and the Early Warning Mechanism. “There was no point on solving the Energy Charter question at once – that was completely out of question,” Tarradellas Espuny said.

The EU energy spokesman noted that the EU-Russian energy council discussed a Russian energy paper by President Dmitri Medvedev announced in Helsinki earlier in April. Tarradellas Espuny said that the paper was a positive development, but reminded that it is not a treaty. “The meeting on Thursday (April 30) was kind of first discussion on the issue,” he said, adding that the paper on energy would probably discussed again in the next G20 meeting.

The EU’s Energy Charter is a legally biding document adopted in 1991 and signed by 49 countries and the European Union. It sets out principles for integrating the energy systems of Eastern Europe and Western Europe along market lines, for protection of foreign investment and resolution of disputes. But Russia, which supplies almost a quarter of EU gas needs, has refused to ratify the charter, arguing that in addition to being a dominant producer, it must also have access to the downstream distribution sector.

Medvedev said in April his document aimed to achieve “a balance of producers of energy resources, transit states and consumers.” The EU energy spokesman said the European Commission is open to Russia’s suggestions on the Energy Charter. “What we said to Russia is that if they’re not going to accept it the way it is, then they can tell us which articles they don’t like, which articles they would like to change of the treaty and what they will be proposing instead. And all these changes in the Energy Charter we can negotiate with the other members of the Energy Charter Treaty organisation,” he said.

“If they think that with the European Union there are bilateral issues that cannot be addressed with the Energy Charter Treaty, then we are negotiating with Russia a new EU-Russia agreement that could also be a good framework to deal with energy issues because it would be a legally binding agreement between two parties. Or if they need channels of discussion and information we have the energy dialogue in place so that could be another framework where issues can be discussed and solved,” Tarradellas Espuny said.

Negotiations on the new EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation agreement including energy are already underway. There are a number of ongoing initiatives, such as the Early Warning Mechanism, that should be enhanced and made more operational in terms of follow up and preventing crisis in the future, the EU energy spokesman said. Meanwhile, at the meeting with Piebalgs in Moscow on April 30, Russia’s Deputy Premier Sechin warned that switching the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline back from the reverse direction, so that oil flows from Odessa to Brody and beyond as originally planned, might jeopardise deliveries of Russian oil to Europe. Sechin referred to the feasibility study for the Sarmatia project approved in Poland on April 24, which paves the way “for switching Odessa-Brody from reverse mode, leading to interruptions not of gas, but oil deliveries to refineries in Southern and Central Europe.” Sechin recalled that the issue was discussed at the previous round of talks. “It seemed less significant at that time. But now the project is evolving, and we would like to point out the threats faced by European consumers. We would like to relate the risks that we see,” Russian news agency Interfax quoted Sechin as saying. But the EU energy spokesman waived off Russia’s concerns. “One of the working groups is the strategies and developments and each group has a subgroup in infrastructure so they are going to talk about Odessa-Brody-Plock-Gdansk pipeline,” he told New Europe. “The Commission considers it could be a good project and could relieve the pressure in the Black Sea straits. It could bring oil from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea or in the way through Central east Europe so it considers it to be an interesting and important project,” he said.