UACES Workshop

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Security and Energy Supply in the New Europe:
A Challenge for the EU's Neighbourhood Policy

Organisers: Anke Schmidt-Felzmann and Valentina Feklyunina, University of Glasgow

Date: 19-20 September 2007

Venue: Glasgow, UK

Energy security has become one of the most salient issues on the European Union's agenda, with one of the main concerns being the dependency on Russian supplies. The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) sets out to reduce the risks of this dependency by enhancing the EU's strategic energy partnership with neighbouring countries, such as the Southern Caucasus, or other neighbours of importance both for the production and the transit of energy. The aim of the workshop is to examine the problem of the security of energy supply and the possible role of the ENP in its solution from various theoretical and methodological perspectives, and to analyse the potential of and limits to creating strategic energy partnerships with countries other than Russia.

The two-day workshop was hosted by the Department of Politics at the University of Glasgow and generously funded by UACES, the Glasgow-based Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES), the Scottish Jean Monnet Centre, the Faculty of Law, Business and Social Sciences and the Department of Politics of the University of Glasgow.

Organisation of this event was motivated by the fact that security of energy supply has become in recent years one of the most salient issues on the European Union's agenda. The EU’s demand for natural gas and oil, supplemented by alternative, renewable, sources of energy is increasing as domestic production of non-renewable sources of energy is rapidly declining. Diversification is thus, alongside the environmental sustainability, the key aim of the EU’s nascent external energy policy, aimed at achieving greater energy security both in terms of supply routes and supply sources.

The workshop brought together a total of thirty participants, established scholars and young researchers from eight institutions and of ten different nationalities. The aim of the workshop was to foster intensive discussion among a diverse group of scholars from different methodological backgrounds, working on energy security related aspects of the EU’s policy towards its neighbours with a range of geographic and sectoral foci to explore the potential of and challenges for development of a common EU external energy policy and the implications of the EU’s endeavours for its broader external relations with ‘third’ countries. Participants were encouraged to address issues related to the EU’s aim to develop strategic partnerships with neighbouring countries important both for the production and the transit of energy. The three focus areas for discussion, as stipulated by the organisers, were a) the potential of and limits to creating strategic energy partnerships with neighbouring states in the East and the South, b) the divergent geopolitical interests of Russia and the EU in the ‘near abroad’ as a serious challenge for the successful implementation of the ENP Action Plans, c) possible scenarios to resolve the EU’s energy supply ‘dilemma’.

The workshop was organized in four sessions with a discussant in each session kick-starting debates among the participants. Day one focused on the EU perspective, and day two focused on the perspectives from neighbouring states. The first session, entitled ‘In Pursuit of Energy Security – the EU’s Political and Economic Dilemmas’, was chaired by Alasdair R. Young (University of Glasgow, Politics). The first paper ‘Struggle of Fears: The Framing of EU Energy Policy’ by Anna Herranz Surrallés and Michal Natorski (both Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona), focused on the political discourses of different EU actors, examining definitions of securitization of energy and looking at the EU actors and their respective securitizing discourses regarding the external energy policy. Anna Herranz started with an analysis of the European Parliament’s discourses and Michal Natorski presented the results of his analysis of Commission Communications and speeches of the former and current Commissioners for External Relations, Energy and Transport. The second paper, by Francis McGowan (Sussex European Institute) entitled ‘Resolving the EU’s Energy Supply Dilemma: Is Market Liberalism in an Age of Economic Nationalism the Best Approach?’ addressed the politico-economic dimension of the EU’s energy supply dilemma. Drawing on his earlier research in this field, he traced and compared the political developments and argumentations from the 1970s to the present day. Pamela M. Barnes (University of Lincoln) then presented her paper ‘The Resurrection of the EURATOM Treaty’ and brought the image of Russia as the “dark rider” into the discussion – a metaphor that became very popular over the course of the workshop. She discussed the alternative of nuclear energy for the supply mix and examined political debates within the EU on this matter. A lively debate on methodological issues and the sources of energy available to the EU ensued, spurred by Young’s concise and thought-provoking discussion of the papers.

The second session ‘The Geopolitics of Energy - Analyses of EU, Member States’ and Russian Positions’ was chaired by Beatrix Futák –Campbell (University of St. Andrews). The first paper, presented by Giselle Bosse (University of Maastricht) on ‘The Role of Energy in the European Neighbourhood Policy: Politization or Securitization?’ tied in with the earlier presentation by Herranz and Natorski. From the vantage point of the Copenhagen School she discussed the ‘securitization’ of energy policy, tracing the development of the energy dimension in the European Neighbourhood Policy and explaining its implications for human security. This was followed by Anke Schmidt-Felzmann’s (University of Glasgow) paper ‘Differences among the 27 in the EU’s Common Energy Policy - Combating Fragmentation in the Pursuit of Diversification’ in which she examined the EU’s internal political dynamics in the energy sphere and its implications for the common external energy policy. She argued that the European Commission has been the motor of developments towards a common external energy policy by extending its proactive role in the development of a liberalized common internal energy market into the external sphere. Meanwhile, the Commission’s proposal on the common external energy policy has yet to receive unreserved backing by the member states. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the 27 member states continue to push and pull in different directions in external energy policy. The final paper of this panel was given by Valentina Feklyunina (University of Glasgow), entitled ‘Contested Area: The European Neighbourhood Policy and Energy Security from Russia's Perspective’. It addressed the Russian concerns over the EU’s energy policy towards the CIS and spurred lively debates on Russia’s role and different understandings and interpretations by participants of the motivating factors of Russian and EU energy policies, fostered by a brief discussion of the papers by Beatrix Futak-Campbell from a discourse analytical perspective. The day finished with an informal dinner near the University, which fostered further exchanges among the participants.

The second day of the workshop opened with the third panel session on ‘The Eastern Dimension of the EU’s Energy Policy’, chaired by Stephen L. White (University of Glasgow, Politics). It started with a co-authored paper by Jonathan Oldfield and Eamonn Butler (both University of Glasgow, Department of Central and East European Studies) on ‘Russia-Hungary Energy Relations and the EU’s Common Energy Policy’. Oldfield presented the first part of the paper, outlining the framework of EU external energy policy and Butler built on this introduction in his presentation of the current energy relations of Hungary with Russia, addressing in particular the apparent intra-EU fragmentation with Hungary and Austria pulling in different directions as evidenced by their respective involvement in what are considered rival energy projects with Austria possibly acting as a hub for the EU-led Nabucco pipeline project, and Hungary’s involvement in the Russian-led Bluestream project. This paper was followed by a presentation entitled ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Ukrainian Energy Policy’ by Elena Gnedina (Queen’s University Belfast) which focused on conceptualising Ukraine’s foreign policy choices and options illustrated by the example of Ukraine’s energy relations with the EU and with Russia, respectively. The third paper, ‘Transit of Russia’s Energy to the EU via Ukraine: Conflict and Co-operation’, was presented by Elena Kropatcheva (University of Hamburg, Centre for OSCE Research). Her analysis focused on the economic interdependencies with both Russia and the EU that underpin Ukraine’s difficult geopolitical position, illustrated by a discussion of the various pipeline projects for transit via, and supply of, energy to Ukraine and the obstacles encountered in the EU’s endeavours to diversify supply routes. After a critical discussion of the papers by Stephen White, a lively debate about the geopolitics of energy transit and supply in Central and Eastern Europe ensued.

The final session of the workshop, chaired by Cian O’Driscoll (University of Glasgow, Politics) addressed the ‘EU’s Energy Cooperation with Countries of the Southern Mediterranean and the Caspian Region’, starting with a presentation by Hakim Darbouche (University of Liverpool) entitled ‘Between the ENP and a ‘Strategic Energy Partnership’: EU-Algerian Relations Redefined?’ Using the metaphor of “Algeria’s Russia Syndrome”, he illustrated parallels of EU-Algerian relations with the case of EU-Russian relations. He emphasized that Algeria as the second most important supplier of primary energy resources to the EU has an important place in the EU’s external energy policy, and that Algeria’s growing confidence in the international arena is presenting significant problems for the EU as a whole, and in particular Spain (and to some extent Portugal) as significant consumer countries. This presentation was followed by Mehmet Y. Tezcan’s (Universite Libre de Bruxelles) paper on ‘The Potential of and Limits to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Concerning the Security of the EU’s Energy Supply’ from the perspective of political economy. Tezcan argued that when looking at energy, we are looking at economic activities where the state is, at least in the fully liberalized markets as currently envisaged by the EU, not a key actor and that this has implications for our analysis of the state’s and EU energy policy. The final presentation was by Wojciech Ostrowski (University of St. Andrews) on the ‘Kazakh Oil Industry in Transition (1991-2005)’ in which he presented the findings of his recently completed PhD thesis, a sociological study of resource-based politics in the “neo-patrimonial regime” of Kazakhstan and its relations with the Kazakh oil industry. The ensuing panel debate, kick-started by O’Driscoll’s discussion of the three papers, pursued the argument that had been, implicitly or explicitly, addressed in all three papers: the main flaw of the EU’s external energy policy has been that it is largely reactive, that the EU did not devised a strategic policy on its own accord, but simply as a response to increasing outside pressures. The session finished on a critical note, with Hakim Darbouche noting that ‘anchoring the ENP to energy is problematic’ because the two key energy supplying countries, Algeria and Russia, are self-excluded from the ENP, so we really should look for a new framework for the external energy relations of the EU. The workshop participants will certainly not stop here and most definitely continue to dig deeper and pursue further research on the EU’s energy policy.

The workshop closed with a discussion of future collaboration among participants; joint publications on the basis of the workshop papers were highlighted as a first step. Publication of a number of revised workshop papers in a Special Issue of the online Journal of Contemporary European Research (JCER) is under way. It is planned that the issue, co-edited by the workshop organizers, will be launched at the forthcoming conference ‘Energising Europe: Climate Change, Energy Security & Europe’s Next Big Project’, to be held in London on 16-17 May 2008. A further set of workshop papers are being put forward for a special journal issue of another peer-reviewed journal in collaboration with other colleagues in the field, to be published in late 2008/early 2009.

For further information on the workshop, please contact: Anke Schmidt-Felzmann (a.schmidt-felzmann.1[a]research.gla.ac.uk) or Valentina Feklyunina (v.feklyunina.1[a]research.gla.ac.uk)

For updates, please check http://www.lbss.gla.ac.uk/Politics/degreeprogrammes/postgradresearch