Energy: Russian Expert Addresses Europe’s Security Concerns

PRAGUE, October 24, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Russia is playing an ever-larger role in global energy politics — from Europe to Central Asia to Iran. Yelena Telegina, a member of the board of the Association of Russian Crude Oil Exporters and former board chairwoman of Rosneft, spoke with RFE/RL correspondents Claire Bigg and Breffni O’ Rourke about these issues and more. Telegina is in Prague to participate in the Prague Energy Forum, organized by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in partnership with the Warsaw-based Institute for Eastern Studies.

RFE/RL: At the European Union summit help in Finland on October 20, European leaders once more pressed Russia to ratify the Energy Charter. Could Russia’s failure to ratify this charter hamper its ambitions to increase oil and gas supplies to Europe?

Yelena Telegina: It cannot. The issue of the charter’s ratification is not new. The charter was signed [in December 1991] in a completely different situation. Back then, it was the only basis for energy trade on the European continent. Today, conditions have changed and Russia considers — in my opinion, correctly — that all existing problems can be resolved in the framework of the World Trade Organization. The WTO is now broader than the charter. The charter is obsolete and there’s no point in trying to reanimate an organization that has already fulfilled its functions. Of course, positive work is being carried out in the framework of the charter, for instance the attempt to create a common transit protocol. Russia strives to join the WTO, and I think that the WTO will help solve all existing contradictions.

RadioFreeEurope