European Energy Strategy for Ukraine

by Dr. Sergiy Korsunsky, Director-General of the Economic Department, Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The reality is such that the EU is relatively poor in conventional energy reserves. Therefore Europe’s economic future depends on a secure, affordable and sustainable energy supply. But to achieve this goal it is no longer adequate to assure simple physical availability of energy sources. Supply policy needs to consider the immediate and longer-term availability of energy products at a price which is affordable to all consumers (individuals and industrial), while respecting environmental and other requirements for sustainable development. It also needs to take into account trends in demand in Europe and Asia as well. Analysis done by the European experts confirms that under current patterns of energy production and energy use, the European Union is consuming limited reserves at a rate which compromises the availability of energy to future generations and threatens the local and global environment.
For the EU, energy supply has an internal dimension and an external dimension. Internally, as everybody agrees, Europe needs to balance supply and demand, while respecting environmental, consumer, safety, political and economic conditions. But Europe is increasingly dependent on imports and therefore the external dimension prevails. Best available estimates show that under the current assumptions the community’s overall import dependency will rise from today’s 50 percent to about 60 to 70 percent in 2020. Especially critical is import share of oil and natural gas. Imported oil is likely to increase from 80 percent of total EU oil supply in 1997 to 87 percent in 2010. Gas imports are forecast to rise from 40 percent today to 66 percent in 2020. Growing imports are not in themselves a threat to security supply, but they highlight the importance of good trade links, communication and political relationships with external partners. Therefore, as the Green Paper says, in recent years the objective of independence from external energy suppliers has been replaced by the objective of managing external dependence. European energy supply faces different forms of risk and its analysis worth separate consideration. But risk from transit could be easily eliminated through inclusion of major transit partners, like Ukraine, into the European energy policy framework.

Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs