Russian President Dm­itry Medvedev will attend an EU-Russia summit in Stockholm on 17-18 November to discuss energy security and a new cooperation pact. “We have not yet found the right legal framework for relations with Russia,” Jean-Arnold Vinois, Head of Unit of Energy Policy & Security Supply, DG TREN, European Commission, said at a conference organized by the Institute of Energy for South East Europe (IENE) on November 11. “Negotiations there are progressing very slowly and we face many difficulties,” he said. He was responding to a question by New Europe about EU-Russia energy relations and the EU’s inability to talk with one voice to energy suppliers.
Moscow and Brussels have already held several rounds of talks on a new partnership and cooperation agreement. The current Russia-EU agreement expired in late 2007, but was automatically extended. In early October, the sixth round of talks on the new agreement took place.
Complicating matters, Russia decided to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) in August.
Medvedev has come with the idea to create new world-wide framework for energy. “The reaction of the EU is to say that we already have the Energy Charter Treaty,” Vinois said. “Why don’t we use this basis to discuss about the principles maybe Russia would like to see at the international level.”
Vinois said this would be discussed by the EU energy ministers in December. “You have two tracks. You have the future of the ECT and you have the future of the negotiations between the EU and Russia and I can’t predict the outcome, its difficult relationship. As long as we have a dialogue with Russia, I think things are moving in the right direction but too slowly,” Vinois said.
On the new relationship between suppliers and the EU in the field of energy, which is wider than Russia, the EU wants to create a clear framework for the companies. On that note, the EU has created a Caspian Development Corporation (IDC), tasked with aggregating European gas purchase offers and presenting them to Central Asian producers. “We’re sure the EU is finally taking the right steps towards its suppliers and creating the right framework for the companies,” Vinois said. “Let be clear this is not a state-to-state issue that is a company issue. Companies are those who are making the contracts with the suppliers. But as you know companies often work against state-to-state relationships - that’s where things have to change. It should be EU to third country, not state-to-state. That is the issue which has to change in the EU as a result of the integration of the national markets into a single European market,” he said.
Russia has been reaching individual energy deals with EU member states as the EU is not able to speak with one voice on energy. “It is an unpleasant situation,” Vinois told New Europe. “In the meantime Russia is making inroads into the European Union.”